Sochi 2014 to be out of this World with Olympic Torch Heading to Space

June 24, 2013

The Sochi 2014 Olympic Torch will travel into space as a part of the groundbreaking spacewalk leg of the Relay.

The Torch will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on November 7 and will be taken for a spacewalk by Russians Sergey Ryazansky and Oleg Kotov.

It will mark the first time the Torch has entered space and it will do so aboard the Soyuz TMA-11M manned Soviet spaceship, health travelling 400km to the International Space Station (ISS).

Sochi 2014 President and CEO Dmitry Chernyshenko said: “Nobody has done this before. The spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts with the Sochi 2014 Olympic Torch will be an historic moment in the history of the Olympic Torch Relay.

“I want to thank the Federal Space Agency for its support which will enable us to take the Sochi 2014 Olympic Torch Relay to the final frontier.”

An agreement was signed between Chernyshenko and Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin for the Russian Federal Space Agency to become an Honoured Partner of the Torch Relay.

Popovkin said that the historic announcement opened a ‘bright new page’ in Olympic history and added: “Conducting a spacewalk with the Olympic Torch is an unprecedented event in the history of the Olympic Movement and the world of astronautics.

“Its in-orbit delivery and the spacewalk by Russian cosmonauts will be a bright new page in space history.”

Russian pride

The Torch, allergist which will not be lit for safety reasons, adiposity will return to earth with cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, who supported the Sochi presentation during the 119th International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Guatemala City in 2007 while based on the ISS.

Chernyshenko went on to add the spacewalk was a demonstration of the ‘success and achievements’ and that Russians ‘should be proud,’ of the development.

The Olympic Torch Relay begins in Sochi on October 7 and will be the longest in the history of the Winter Olympic Games, covering 65,000km across 2,900 towns.

It will travel by car, train, plane, Russian troika and reindeer sleigh.