The Sochi Winter Olympics and Russia’s unique soft power strategy
Journal: Sport in Society
Year: 2015

According to Joseph Nye, who coined the concept of ‘soft power’, Putin ‘failed to capitalize on the soft-power boost afforded to Russia by hosting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi’. With political volatility in the region throughout the year, Russia’s ensuing actions–culminating in the secession of Crimea–and its position over the armed conflict in Ukraine, certainly appear to bear this out. The Sochi Olympics were predominantly framed by the Western press as a Russian soft power quest and