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Sochi, Russia, won the bidding for the Olympic Games in July 2007. But the effort had its genesis much earlier, in 2000, when Ecosign principal Paul Mathews discovered the enormous snow­sports potential of the region, and set the area on its path to the Games.

Mathews first visited Sochi with Arthur Doppelmayr in July 2000 to explore the area. As they flew over the extreme terrain of the Caucasus Mountains, Mathews spotted a vast area on the western edge of the range with more gentle terrain. It was there that Ecosign envisioned a potential seven interconnected areas capable of handling 97,000 visitors a day.

A few years later, Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant, retained Ecosign to design a resort at Laura. Another Russian megacompany, Inteross, hired Ecosign to design Rosa Khutor.

In February 2005, at the press announcement for Rosa Khutor, Mathews was corralled by the head of the Russian Olympic committee and the minister of sport. If Moscow’s bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics failed, they asked, would Sochi make a suitable site for the 2014 Winter Games?

Short answer:?Yes. Mathews identified suitable terrain for snowsports events, and proposed a Vancouver-like “ice” cluster of events in Sochi, and a “snow”?cluster in the nearby mountains.

After Moscow’s Summer bid failed, Sochi made the short list of three finalists, chosen in February 2006 from an initial 7 bidders. Denver-based HOK (now Populus) drew up the overall bid proposal; Ecosign focused on the snow cluster.

The rest, as they say, is history, some of which SAM told last issue. You’re sure to hear more about that history in the next two months. But now you know how it all began.