Intro:

Celebrations were held in Sochi on Tuesday (September 25th) with 500 days to go until the Winter Olympic Games come to the Russia resort in 2014.

Script:

Russia celebrated the 500-day countdown to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi on Tuesday, with a series of nationwide events and the launch of a new slogan: "Hot. Cool. Yours."

More than 12,000 people in 15 cities formed giant human figures representing all of the Winter Olympic sports, moving coloured boards in co-ordinated displays.

Sochi organising committee head Dmitry Chernyshenko says the end is in sight.

SOUNDBITE: (English) Dmitry Chernyshenko, Head of Sochi organising committee:
"We are on the final stage of delivering our impressive project. Now it's the biggest construction site in the world. 70 per cent of the construction (is) already done and we're finishing and we're in the most exciting part, when we are starting to own our venues and making them operational, because people are making the games, not the wall."

Sochi 2014 will be the first time Russia has hosted the Winter Olympics, although it is traditionally one of the strongest competitors in the event.

However, Russians will be hoping their athletes improve on their results at the 2010 Games in Vancouver, when they won only 15 medals and finished 11th in the table - the country's worst ever performance.