2014 Winter Olympics (Sochi)
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50 free 2014 Winter Olympics (Sochi) trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Sochi Games of 2014 were the most expensive Olympics ever staged, held in a seaside summer resort better known for beaches than snow. Years later the medal table was still being rewritten, as doping cases stripped medals from the hosts and a sports court handed some of them back. This quiz covers the whole story: which countries finished where in the medal count and why the standings changed, the champions of the ice rinks and the mountain courses, the new events that made their debut, the opening ceremony and its famous glitch, the torch relay, and the venues and what became of them. It suits anyone who watched in 2014 and wants to test what stuck, quiz hosts building a winter sports round, and readers curious about how the final medal standings came about. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country ended up top of the Sochi 2014 gold medal table once doping rulings cut the hosts' tally?
Norway
Norway finished with 11 golds once the hosts' tally fell from 13 to 10 through doping cases. Russia still has the most medals overall, with 29.
Q 02At Sochi's 2014 opening ceremony, what went wrong as five giant snowflakes turned into the Olympic rings?
One stayed closed
One stayed closed while the other four opened into rings. Organisers poked fun at the glitch in the closing ceremony, where a group of dancers 'failed' to expand on cue.
Q 03Extra medals minted for Sochi 2014's champions of 15 February held fragments of what, a year after it hit the Urals?
A meteorite
A meteorite exploded over Chelyabinsk on 15 February 2013. The region made medals from recovered pieces for the anniversary's winners, but the IOC kept them out of the podium ceremonies.
Q 04Which animals did Sochi hire a firm to exterminate days before the 2014 Olympics, drawing international condemnation?
Stray dogs
Stray dogs drew rescuers as well as exterminators: volunteers hurried to rehome them, and a charity backed by billionaire Oleg Deripaska opened a shelter outside the city that week.
Q 05Which country won both ice hockey tournaments and both curling tournaments at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics?
Canada
Canada became the first country to win both Olympic curling golds at one Games, and its men's and women's hockey teams each went through their tournament unbeaten.
Q 06Which city lost the vote for the 2014 Winter Olympics to Sochi by four votes, then hosted the following Games?
Pyeongchang
Pyeongchang led after the first round but lost the run-off 51 to 47. It had also lost the 2010 Games to Vancouver by three votes, and finally won at its third attempt.
Q 07Which country's bobsleigh team reached Sochi 2014 after fans raised funds online, including about $30,000 in Dogecoin?
Jamaica
Jamaica had not sent a sled to the Olympics since 2002. The two-man crew of Winston Watts and Marvin Dixon lacked the money to travel until online donations came in.
Q 08Which classical violinist skied the giant slalom for Thailand at Sochi 2014 under her father's surname, Vanakorn?
Vanessa-Mae
Vanessa-Mae finished 67th, last of those who completed both runs. A ban over her qualifying races was later overturned, and the ski federation apologised to her.
Q 09Which peninsula did Russian forces begin seizing four days after the closing ceremony of the Sochi 2014 Olympics?
Crimea
Crimea was taken by troops in unmarked uniforms, and Russia formally annexed it in March 2014, less than a month after the Sochi flame went out.
Q 10On the shore of which body of water was Sochi's Olympic Park, with all the 2014 Games' ice arenas, built?
Black Sea
The Black Sea coast held every indoor venue within walking distance of the others, while the snow events went up to the resort of Krasnaya Polyana.
Q 11Which country won 23 of its 24 medals at Sochi 2014 in speed skating, sweeping the podium in four events?
Netherlands
The Netherlands became the first country to sweep four podiums at one Winter Olympics, doubling the old record of two. Its only other medal came in short track.
Q 12Which country won five golds but no silver at Sochi 2014, three of them through biathlete Darya Domracheva?
Belarus
Belarus enjoyed its most successful Winter Olympics in Sochi. Domracheva's wins in the pursuit, individual and mass start races earned her the Hero of Belarus medal.
Q 13Which country celebrated its first Winter Olympic gold at Sochi 2014 thanks to alpine skier Tina Maze?
Slovenia
Q 21Which climate type made Sochi the warmest city to have hosted a Winter Olympics when the 2014 Games opened?
Humid subtropical
Humid subtropical Sochi lies on the same latitude as Nice, and palm trees grow along its seafront, so the snow events were held up in the mountains.
Q 22Which big cat joined a polar bear and a hare as the official mascots of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics?
Leopard
The Leopard was picked with the other two in a national text-message vote shown live on television. Its backstory made it a mountain rescuer and an excellent snowboarder.
Q 23By what means did the Sochi 2014 torch relay carry the Olympic flame to the North Pole for the first time?
A nuclear icebreaker
Slovenia won eight medals in Sochi, more than at all its previous Winter Olympics combined. Maze took two of them, both gold.
Q 14Which country gained its first Winter Olympic gold when Russia's four-man bobsleigh crew lost its Sochi 2014 title?
Latvia
Latvia's sled, piloted by Oskars Melbārdis, finished second on the day and was promoted years later, after the winning crew was disqualified for doping.
Q 15Which country's women's biathlon relay team won gold at Sochi 2014 days after deadly clashes in its capital?
Ukraine
Ukraine had not won a Winter gold since figure skater Oksana Baiul in 1994. After the race, Olena Pidhrushna asked for a minute's silence for those killed in Kyiv.
Q 16Luger Armin Zöggeler won a medal at his sixth straight Winter Olympics at Sochi 2014, competing for which country?
Italy
Italy's Zöggeler, a South Tyrol native nicknamed the Cannibal, was the first athlete to win medals in the same individual event at six Olympics in a row.
Q 17Prince Hubertus von Hohenlohe, aged 55, was the sole athlete sent to the Sochi 2014 Olympics by which country?
Mexico
Mexico is where the skiing prince was born, while his father ran a Volkswagen factory there. Sochi made him the second-oldest Winter Olympian ever, 30 years after his first Games.
Q 18Which country's athletes began Sochi 2014 under the Olympic flag because its national Olympic body was suspended?
India
India was reinstated by the IOC on 11 February, four days into the Games, so two of its three athletes went on to compete under their own flag.
Q 19Sochi 2014's reported cost of US$51 billion overtook which Summer Games as the most expensive Olympics in history?
Beijing 2008
Beijing 2008 had cost an estimated $44 billion while staging about three times as many events. Sochi was first budgeted at $12 billion.
Q 20Sochi 2014's alpine and Nordic skiing events were held at Krasnaya Polyana, a resort in which mountain range?
Caucasus
The Caucasus peaks behind the resort rise above 2,000 metres. A new railway was built to link the slopes with the airport and the Olympic Village down on the coast.
A nuclear icebreaker, the 50 Let Pobedy, delivered the torch in October 2013. The same relay sent an unlit torch on a spacewalk and took one to the depths of Lake Baikal.
Q 24Fisht Olympic Stadium, which staged Sochi 2014's ceremonies, lost its roof to host matches at which later tournament?
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup came to Russia in 2018, and its rules demanded an open-air ground. No Olympic event was ever held in the stadium, which was built only for the ceremonies.
Q 25Which motorsport series began racing in October 2014 on a circuit laid out around Sochi's Olympic Park?
Formula One
Formula One held its first Russian Grand Prix there months after the Games, ending a campaign for a race in the country that went back to 1983.
Q 26Which tennis star, who lived in Sochi as a child, carried the torch into the stadium at the 2014 opening ceremony?
Maria Sharapova
Maria Sharapova moved to Sochi with her family at the age of three. She passed the flame to pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva in a relay of Russian sporting greats.
Q 27Which Soviet ice hockey goaltending great lit the Sochi 2014 cauldron together with figure skater Irina Rodnina?
Vladislav Tretiak
Vladislav Tretiak took the torch from Rodnina inside the stadium, and the pair jogged outside to light the cauldron together to the music of Stravinsky's Firebird.
Q 28Sochi 2014 was the first Olympics under which IOC president, a former fencing gold medallist from Germany?
Thomas Bach
Thomas Bach won team foil gold in 1976 and was the first Olympic champion ever elected to lead the IOC. He held the post until 2025.
Q 29Members of which punk protest group were beaten by Cossack patrols while filming in Sochi during the 2014 Olympics?
Pussy Riot
Pussy Riot's Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and a bandmate had been freed from prison by an amnesty weeks earlier. In 2023 a European court ordered Russia to pay damages for the attack.
Q 30Which openly gay tennis great did Barack Obama name to the US delegation for Sochi 2014 amid a row over Russian law?
Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King had to pull out when her mother fell ill; her mother died on the day of the opening ceremony. The choice was read as a signal on gay rights.