When the Olympic torch is lit Friday in Sochi, Russia, it will kick off a two-week spectacle of winter games both familiar and foreign to Durango.

On the one hand, freestyle skiing and snowboarding need no introduction, and locals will watch hometown girl Lanny Barnes compete in the biathlon, where athletes ski long distances and shoot rifles – a useful skill set, whether hunting elk in Colorado or chasing Nazi soldiers through the Alps.

But as usual, the Winter Olympics will foist a number of seemingly absurd sports into prominence. For the first time in four years, Durangoans can ponder the allure of luge – which, according to Wikipedia, is the “fastest and most dangerous” of the three Winter Olympic sports that involve thrusting oneself face up on a sled and sliding down an ice chute at speeds approaching 90 mph.

But whereas every Olympics features sports that few people have encountered, this Olympics is being held in a place few people – anywhere – have heard of: Sochi, Russia.

Sochi

In some ways, Durango and Sochi have much in common. Both cities are tourist-oriented, nestled in mountains and harbor a recently unreciprocated enthusiasm for snow.

But whereas Durango’s bids for international sporting stardom have been backed by City Manager Ron LeBlanc, Sochi’s are backed by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who has thrown $51 billion at transforming Sochi into an Olympics-ready venue – several billion dollars of which are missing.

Unlike previous host cities such as Tokyo, London, Beijing and Athens, Sochi is obscure to Durangoans.

Seventeen-year-old Michaela Wilson said she’d never heard of Sochi before this Olympics. While she didn’t yet associate anything with the city, when she thinks of Russia, she said “big dudes” spring to mind.

Wilson was one of the few Durangoans approached by the Herald who agreed to go on the record about Sochi.

Of the 20 people who refused, most said they didn’t know what Sochi was. One man asked whether “Sochi” is the name of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter. Another asked whether “Sochi” was the name of the iPhone’s personal assistant. (In fact, the Cruise-Holmes daughter is “Suri,” and iPhone’s helper is “Siri.”)

For those who have not been following the controversies surrounding Sochi’s attempt to get ready for the games, here’s a cheat sheet:

In the last year, Russian security forces have imposed a “ring of steel” around Sochi with 50,000 Russian soldiers and policemen on site amid intensifying concerns about a terrorist attack.

In the last year, Putin’s banning gay, lesbian and “homosexual propaganda” from the Olympics brought stinging criticism from human-rights organizations, provoked a diplomatic skirmish with President Barack Obama and inspired a recent “Saturday Night Live” skit exploring what Putin’s anti-gay stance will mean for figure skating.

Just two days before the opening ceremony, several large construction projects remain unfinished, including major hotels and roads.

In the last week, news outlets have reported that Sochi is preparing to execute thousands of stray dogs as the government fears the animals will prove a nuisance and sully the city’s reputation.

In the last 36 hours, members of the Austrian Olympic team received numerous threats.

Game on

To the handful of locals who’ve stayed abreast of events in Sochi, the debacles have not yet surpassed the promise of peculiar joy offered by this Winter Games – including the chance to throw oneself into baffling sports, root for a local girl and witness thrilling feats of athleticism against a chilly landscape.

Durango’s Don Thomas said his favorite Winter Olympics sport is curling, in which players slide polished stones across a sheet of ice reminiscent of a bowling alley that’s segmented into four concentric rings. In the great tradition of Winter Olympics viewing, Thomas said he understood the sport “a little bit.”

“For some reason, I find it amusing to watch,” he said.

But Thomas said he is troubled by Sochi’s Cinderella story, as Putin had “ignored the working people there, to more or less put together an Olympic venue in Russia.”

“What are you going to say?” he said.

He said he wished to see the games in his favorite Olympic venue, Lillehammer, Norway, home to the 1994 Winter Olympics.

“It was just winter sports the way they were supposed to be. It was a cool Norwegian town that looks conducive to skiing and skating – that’s what the people do there,” he said.

He said Sochi was shaping up to be his least favorite host city of all time, citing ongoing concerns about terrorism, though he said, to be fair, “I haven’t even seen the Olympics there yet.”

Though Bill Boardman has tracked Sochi’s $50 billion transformation, he said when it comes to the Winter Olympics, “all I can think of is Canada. Canadians seem so winterish.”

“They should always have the Winter Olympics in Canada – no bidding necessary,” he said.

Boardman said until the International Olympic Committee recognizes ice climbing as a sport, his favorite event is the biathlon, given its inherently dramatic formula of “ski, shoot, ski some more, shoot,” he said.

He speculated that if Putin were a biathlete, he’d place for a medal.

“I think he would probably shoot the other contenders,” he said. “I’m pretty sure of that, actually. He’s KGB, for heavens’ sake – not exactly the nicest of folks.”

However it goes in Sochi, Boardman said he hoped “the Olympians themselves” have a “grand old time.”

“As far as the terrorism issue goes, it’s the 21st century. You’re never guaranteed anything,” he said.

Dennis Davis, a member of the U.S. Olympic Ski Team in the 1960s until Vietnam intervened and a stint in the Navy disrupted his athletic career, said, “The venue disturbs me a little bit,” citing terrorism and “everything else.”

When it comes to Putin, Davis was philosophical.

“He’s a hard-going ex-Soviet-era guy,” he said. “But we’ve always had trouble with the Russians, off and on. What can you say about the guy?”

Given that Sochi still is physically struggling to meet the demands of hosting the Winter Games despite Putin’s Olympic monomania and Russia’s vast resources, Davis doubts the Olympics ever would come to Durango.

“That would be pretty much an impossibility,” he said. “There’s nothing in infrastructure that possibly would make that possible, unfortunately.”

Durango’s Sherri Haldorson is excited about “having something good to watch on TV” and can’t wait to show her 4-year-old daughter the figure skating.

But Haldorson said she’d heard of Sochi only in relation to “the scandals that are already attached to the Olympics there – and it’s not even started.”

She didn’t want to pass pre-emptive judgment on the Russians.

“I don’t really have an opinion, I would say – I think I just have a stereotype that probably isn’t fair,” she said. “I feel like they might not be as warm and embracing as other countries have been in the past.”

Haldorson said no scandal to so far emerge from Sochi could compete with the made-in-America media hysteria surrounding “Tonya Harding versus Nancy Kerrigan,” a tabloid story line centering on the U.S. Figure Skating Team that dominated the Winter Olympics 20 years ago.

“That one was like, right in my time, my life,” she said.

She said she didn’t want the Olympics to come to Durango.

“No. When they thought all those people would come here for that bicycle classic, I was like, ‘No! Don’t wreck our town!’” she said. “I’m glad they didn’t show up.

“Once they come here, then they’ll never leave, you know? It will be packed all the time,” she said.

cmcallister@durangoherald.com