On February 7, 2013, Russia celebrated a landmark date: just one year to go before the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. On that morning, the All-Russian countdown in days, hours, minutes and seconds to the start of the Olympics began. For the first time in the history of the Games, at exactly 11:00 am local time across Russia, eight OMEGA countdown clocks to the Olympic Games in 2014 were simultaneously unveiled. Representatives of regional and city authorities, famous athletes, culture and art personalities, as well as representatives of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee took part in the OMEGA countdown clock unveiling ceremonies. In the evening, the city of Sochi was the center of the celebrations: at the Olympic "Bolshoy" Ice Dome, Jacques Rogge, the Head of the IOC, presented an official invitation to the Games to representatives of the National Olympic Committees, which culminated in a colorful ice show with a performance by Sochi 2014 ambassador Ilya Averbukh and Russian figure skating stars.
