Snow no concern for sub-tropical Sochi in 2014: chief

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Cold weather and snow will not be in short supply during the 2014 winter Olympics in Russia's Sochi, despite the city's sub-tropical climate, Games chief Dmitry Chernyshenko said on Sunday.

The February 12-28 Vancouver Olympics have been hit by unusually warm weather with the mountains of Whistler and Cypress, where the outdoor events are held, struggling to keep surfaces from melting away.

Despite monitoring weather patterns since being awarded the Games in 2003, Vancouver organizers were left scratching their head when the warmest January on record wreaked havoc with their preparations.

"We will be applying innovative technological solutions to make sure the competitions are absolutely fine," said Chernyshenko, who led Russia's first successful bid to host the winter Olympics.

"We will do extra activities for snow storage. We also have a system that creates artificial snow independent of weather conditions," he said.

Vancouver Games organizers had to fly and truck in snow to maintain the courses on the mountains and were forced to cancel 28,000 tickets because the standing room areas were not safe as warm temperatures and continuous rain melted the snow.

REPEATED DELAYS

Apart from being a public relations issue just before the Games, the weather also forced repeated delays and postponements of competitions and training session.

Sochi is better known as a summer destination, basking in the moderate climate of the Black Sea, but Chernyshenko said his hometown had an added advantage of the Krasnaya Polyana mountain sites, some 40 km away, being at higher altitude than Vancouver.

"The downhill start is 400m higher than in Whistler at 2,250 meters," said Chernyshenko. "There is a natural advantage. We are lucky with the geography."

"The warm humid air blows in from the Black sea and comes down as snow in higher altitude," he said.

(Editing by Ed Osmond)