11.02 In Nod to Sochi Costs, Ovechkin Values Hockey Gold at $50 Billion

SOCHI, February 10 (R-Sport) – What’s a gold medal worth at the Sochi Olympics? $50 billion, if you’re Russian hockey star Alex Ovechkin.

That’s approximately the reported cost of staging Russia’s first Winter Olympics and, for Ovechkin, it will all pay off if only Russia can win the men’s hockey gold medal game on February 23.

Russia has not won the gold since the Soviet victory at Calgary 1988 and Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals forward, said after training in Sochi that “It means gold only costs $50 billion.”

The Russian government estimated the infrastructure and hosting costs for the Games at $51 billion last year, although Russian officials and the International Olympic Committee have since said that direct hosting costs amount to only $6.4 billion.

Russia begins its hockey tournament on Thursday against Slovenia in the preliminaries, before taking on the United States on Saturday and Slovakia on Sunday.

Ovechkin trained on the same line as Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin and Caroline Hurricanes wing Alexander Semin on Monday.