Winners of Sochi 2014 Cultural Programme revealed

By Gary Anderson

September 19 - After receiving more than 1,000 applications for the competition, the winners of the Sochi 2014 Cultural Programme have been announced and will get the opportunity to perform in front of guests at the Games next year.

The three winning entrants include Siberian musical outfit "Bis Band", the "Harmonika Orchestra" from Serbia and gymnast Valentina Apevalova from St Petersburg.

The competition saw contestants from 53 regions of Russia and from 20 countries perform for the right to appear at the Olympics and Paralympics, and the winners were chosen by a panel of judges on the Games Advisory Council.

Sochi 2014 Ambassadors and musicians Yury Bashmet, Andrey Makarevich and Valery Syutkin were amongst the judging panel, as were Turin 2006 gold medal winning skaters Evgeny Plushenko and Tatiana Navka, and Olympic silver medallist Irina Slutskaya, as well as Russian television presenter Yuri Vyazemsky, and artistic director of the Kuban Cossack choir, Viktor Zakharchenko.

The competition was launched in August 2012 as part of the Sochi 2014 Cultural Olympiad, and included performers from a variety of artistic genres such as vocal, ballet, folk dance, mime and acrobatics.

Turin 2006 gold medal winner Evgeny Plushenko was amongst the judging panel for the Sochi 2014 Cultural Programme

The Sochi 2014 Cultural Olympiad is a project run by the organisers of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, which is due to run from February 7 to 23 with the Paralympic Games scheduled from March 7 to 16.

Launched in 2010, the Cultural Olympiad aims to promote not only Russia's sporting culture but also its historic and artistic culture through organising a series of events using cinema, theatre, music and museums.

The first year of the programme, 2010, was dedicated to cinema and 2011 was the Year of Theatre, 2012 was the Year of Music, while 2013 is the Year of Museums.