The XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games

The XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games of 2014 in Sochi have ended. They were attended by a record number of National Olympic and Paralympic Committees – a total of 133.

In addition to the overall triumph of the Russian team, as well as medals won by Ukraine and Kazakhstan, of special importance for us was the linguistic support for these large-scale sporting events.

Janus’s Olympic history began in the summer of 2011, when our company won the tender for comprehensive linguistic support for the Olympic and Paralympic Games and became the sole vendor for the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee.

This project required the company and its employees to take original decisions and consolidate the efforts of many professionals in the field of translation, editing and layout.

The first step was the creation of a structure within Janus unique to the translation industry, a Sports Projects Department, the staff of which consisted of specialists familiar with sports terminology, including staff members who are native speakers of English, German and French.

Janus’s Interpreting Department received unprecedented experience in providing interpreting services and technical support for major events in the preparation period and during the staging of the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. During the preparation process, our experts provided language support for very important events, including the 126th IOC Session, the IOC Coordination Commission meetings, the audit sessions by the IOC management and seminars of the heads of Olympic and Paralympic delegations.

Moreover, qualitative linguistic support played a crucial role during visits by IOC experts in construction, power engineering, transport, overlay, accommodation, security, broadcasting and such rare spheres as the complex integration of venues, meteorology and snowmaking.

During the period of the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi we simultaneously served 14 sports venues, 17 halls, 15 interpreter booths of European standard class, more than 20 tonnes of equipment and performed translations from / into nine languages. Five translation interpreting coordinators, 102 top class simultaneous interpreters, 11 foreign IOC interpreters, as well as 32 simultaneous, sound and video equipment service engineers worked from Janus.

During the Games, 5 project managers and more than 100 full-time and freelance translators worked on written projects. Our three coordinators, dozens of equipment engineers and approximately 100 interpreters actively worked on interpreting projects. They included such prominent experts as Bill Weber, the legendary interpreter who worked at previous Olympic Games.

Representatives of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee and the Government of the Russian Federation noted the exceptionally high quality of our services. We also received positive feedback from journalists, athletes and ordinary fans.