Dharm Makwana

The mayor of Sochi, Russia, will leave Vancouver with more than the Olympic flag.

Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov said his city would be better able to meet goals for growing it’s housing stock and other municipal initiatives after learning the ins and outs of staging a hallmark sporting event from current hosts City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Organizing Committee.

“We are going to achieve and do everything in three years,” Mayor Pakhomov said through a translator. “If it were not for the Olympic Games it would take us probably 50 or 100 years to do so.

“I’m sure Olympic Games are not only sports competitions. It’s a festival of culture, patriotism and hospitality.”

Mayor Pakhomov fielded questions from the media after witnessing the transfer of the historic Oslo Olympic flag from Vancouver City Hall on Saturday in advance of the Sunday’s closing ceremony.

Mayor Eduardo Paes of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Neale Coleman, senior advisor to London Mayor Boris Johnson were also in attendance for the flag transfer.

Keeping with tradition, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson will present Mayor Pakhomov with the flag, which was on display at City Hall since 2006, at the ceremony.

“In fact, today and tomorrow will be the most memorable days in my life,” Mayor Pakhomov beamed. “Because today and tomorrow we will be accepting the symbol of peace, the symbol of healthy life they symbol of the Olympic movement.”

VANOC will fully debrief the Sochi organizing committee in June over a period of 10 days, according to VANOC CEO John Furlong. The front end of the presentation will focus on technology employed to stage the Games while the remaining time will be spent focused on 35 other areas identified as being of interest to the Sochi delegation.

Best practices established at the Vancouver Games will become the new standard for future Olympic host cities. Mr. Furlong, who’s steered VANOC from its infancy, did not comment on which benchmarks his committee established during these Games.

Mr. Furlong did, however, offer Mayor Pakhomov advice for the run up to the next Winter Olympics.

“I would say to Anatoly, the mayor of Sochi, be filled with the spirit of wonder and enjoy every minute. This is extraordinarily hard work but at the end I think its fair to say you will come out of this a better city, a better society, a better people and you’ll have a better Russia. I think, that is the promise of the Olympic Games at its best.”