Putin compares Olympic torch to Kalashnikov

SAINT-PETERSBURG (AFP) –

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) and IOC President Jacques Rogge attend an IOC executive board meeting at the SportAccord International Convention in St. Petersburg, on May 30, 2013. Putin on Thursday jokingly compared the unveiled design of the official torch for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games to a Kalashnikov rifle.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday jokingly compared the unveiled design of the official torch for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games to a Kalashnikov rifle.

“No matter what they do in Russia, it turns out looking like a Kalashnikov,” Putin said at the Games’ medals and torch unveiling ceremony in Russia’s second city of Saint Petersburg.

The joke drew a chuckle and a big smile from visiting International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge.

The Belgian was later seen performing a motion with his hands as if he was loading and firing a rifle.

The Kalashnikov rifle was designed for the Soviet army shortly after World War II and is today believed to be the world’s most mass-produced weapon.

Officials said the matt silver in the torch’s design represented ice while the red stood for the fire kindling in the mountains that surround the Black Sea holiday resort of Sochi.

Putin secured the palm-tree-lined city the unlikely title of Winter Olympic capital after putting up a firm defence of its candidacy while prime minister in 2007.

The torch relay will begin on October 7 in Greece and stretch more than 65,000 kilometres (40,000 miles) as it winds its way across Russia on its way to the Black Sea.

Officials said the torch — this time without its flame — will also be taken on a space walk when it visits the International Space Station at a still-undisclosed time.