Alexander Zhukov, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister who is also the President of the ROC, said that the money would be invested in its efforts to help Russia recover from their disastrous performance at last year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver where they finished 11th in the overall medals table with just three golds.

"The money is allocated for special purpose programmes as a supplement to other financial means provided by the state via the Sports Ministry and the Russian sports training centre," said Zhukov.

The deal with Gazprom, Russia's biggest company and the largest extractor of natural gas in the world, will help fund the country's preparations for Sochi which have been given another boost after the ROC signed a $5 million (£3 million) five-year contract with Canada's Allinger Consulting Inc.

They helped Canada's athletes prepare for Vancouver where they topped the medals table with a total of 26 medals, 14 of them gold.

Allinger Consulting was founded by Cathy Priestner-Allinger (pictured), the 1976 Olympic 500 metres speed skating silver medallist, who was the architect of Canada's Own the Podium blueprint for Vancouver 2010, which received $110 million (£68 million) worth of funding.

She works with her husband Todd Allinger, who also played a leading role in Own the Podium, heading up a unit devoted to finding that extra edge that helped Canadians perform so well at Vancouver.

Prior to this, she was the managing director of Games Operations for Turin 2006 having been the first female managing director of sport for the Salt Lake 2002 Games.

Under the contract, Allinger Consulting Inc will develop a step-by-step training programme for Russia's team leading up to Sochi 2014 and beyond.

The strategy will be individually tailored to each athlete. and included latest state-of-the-art training techniques and equipment.

They also provide advice on nutrition and sports medicine.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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