Putin: Fire senior Russian Olympic official

Sochi (Russia), Feb 7 (AP) A year before the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics begin, President Vladimir Putin has demanded that a senior member of the Russian Olympic Committee be fired. Putin's move came after he scolded officials over a two-year delay and huge cost overruns in the construction of ski jump facilities for the Sochi Games. Akmet Bilalov's company was building the ski jump and adjacent facilities before selling its stake to state-owned Sberbank last year. During his tour of Olympic venues Wednesday Putin fumed when he heard the cost of the ski jump had soared from 1.2 billion rubles (USD 40 million) to 8 billion rubles (USD 265 million) and the project was behind schedule. Kozak told reporters today that Putin has recommended the Russian Olympic Committee fire Bilalov, one of its six vice presidents. (AP) DBR 02072214 NNNN