SPORTS

Ticket sales for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games began exactly one year before their start, the press office of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee said.

Tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as for 15 sports competitions, are available to Russian citizens and foreigners who are legal residents on the official website of the XXII Winter Olympics and XI Paralympics at www.sochi2014.com/, it said.

The ticket prices begin at 500 rubles ($17) and reach 50,000 rubles ($1,700).

To combat ticket scalping, organizers are restricting sales to four tickets per person in hockey, figure skating and the opening and closing ceremonies, and to eight tickets per person for all other sports.

People living abroad wishing to buy tickets have to go through the ticketing partners of their countries' national Olympic committees.