Its been widely reported that this year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi has been the most expensive on record. A staggering $51 billion (US) has reportedly gone into the making of the games, including upgraded transport, hotels and infrastructure for the events. The Russian’s original budget of $12 billion dwarfs the actual cost of the games, more than 4 times over what they had originally planned to spend.

I wanted to research into what this total meant, and how it compared to previous games.

For the record, it is almost 8 times more expensive than the previous most costly winter games in Vancouver, which totalled $6.4 billion (way over their initial budget also).

The cost of Sochi totals more than all the previous winter games combined.

The blowout is second in recent times to Torino in the most over budget. (Torino = 6.7 times, Sochi = 4.2 times, Vancouver = 3.5 times over budget)

Recent times have seen the cost of the Olympics increase significantly, with very few games remaining under their initial budget forecast.

ай,

Cobba.