POSTED: April 27th 2010
NewsUpdate
Family business as Russian polar team flies Sochi flag on top of the world
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT / Sports Features Communications
SOCHI: For whoever is likely to see it in the icy desolation, a flag featuring the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics message has been raised at the North Pole by a seven-strong expedition led by polar travellers Dmitry and Matvey Shparo and Boris Smolin.
The party embarked on April 16 from the Russian drifting station Borneo. It took them six days to travel the 70 miles to the North Pole on drifting ice in the Arctic Ocean which was when the Sochi 2014 flag was formally hoisted.
Matvey Shparo said: "The Games represent a strong and unifying power for me. My father, Dmitry Shparo is a famous traveller who carried the torch at the relay for the Moscow Games in 1980 and now I am proud to have led an expedition which carried the Sochi flag to the North Pole.
"This journey was very challenging but also a great success and we are all looking forward to the Games coming to Russia.”
Further encouragement for the Sochi organisers came the Russian Public Opinion Research Center which released results of a poll claiming that a majority of Russians – 84pc of those questioned, 1600 Russians from across 42 regions – are confident the country will make a good job of hosting the Winter Games
Keywords · Shparo · Sochi · 2014 Winter Olympics
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