SOCHI, Russia — Already stringent security measured appeared to tighten even further Friday in the run-up to the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics.
For the first time since spectators and media members began arriving in Sochi, entrances to Olympic Park were staffed with volunteers requiring both credentials and opening ceremony tickets to get in. Even credentialed media members were not allowed to walk through the park, where all the competition venues were built in a circle, without a ticket.
There was also an unmarked white blimp hovering above the Bolshoy Ice Dome, one of the two hockey venues.
More and more police and military offers have been visible each day this week around venues and housing areas. With terrorist threats from rebels in the nearby Caucasus mountain region getting significant attention, Russia has promised the most secure games in history with more than 40,000 security forces manning the so-called "Ring of Steel" around Sochi.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach on Friday laughed at the suggestion the security presence in the face of terrorist threats was significantly more overt at these Games than others.
"I remember we were led to the bus with armed machine guns over their shoulders," said Bach, who competed on the German fencing team in 1976, just four years after Israeli athletes were taken hostage and killed at the Summer Olympics in Munich. "Helicopters were flying, and the same when you went to training, you always had police car when you went to competition. We were living with it and their security was much more obvious and closer to you than it is here now.
"You can see if you speak with the athletes in the Olympic village they all feel very comfortable that the atmosphere is very good in the village and I'm absolutely sure this Olympic atmosphere will spill over from the Olympic village to the audience and the games."
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