Ollie Williams
BBC Sport in Sochi

"Security in Sochi has been prominent as the world's athletes and media arrive for the Games. Threats in recent months have included repeated calls to disrupt the Olympics from the Imarat Kavkaz group in the North Caucasus, suicide bombings in the nearby city of Volgograd, and a recent US warning about the potential for 'toothpaste' bombs on flights.

"Journalists arriving in the region have found hotel rooms and other facilities unfinished amid a last-minute rush by organisers to complete building work, though the Olympic venues themselves have largely met with praise from athletes."

As our sports editor David Bond says in his latest blog, "it is not lazy shorthand to call Sochi 2014 'Putin's Games'".

Russian president Vladimir Putin has been the driving force behind the event ever since the International Olympic Committee gave the Black Sea city the Games seven years ago.

While Putin is expected to play a prominent part in today's ceremony, the showpiece's producer Konstantin Ernst said we shouldn't expect him to jump out of a plane and into the stadium like our very own Queen did at the London 2012 opening ceremony.

"We shouldn't be hoping too much for that," said Ernst. "But I hope that we will have a surprise for you."

Clare Balding, in a BBC Sport standard issue blue coat, is your host, with Hazel Irvine and 1980 Olympic champion Robin Cousins your commentary team for the opening ceremony.

If you reach for your remotes, or click the link at the top of the page to open up the video, you'll see the opening sequence to our live coverage on BBC Two & HD.

Great Britain are hoping for their most successful Winter Games ever, with UK Sport setting a target of between three and seven podium finishes.

Winter Olympic aficionados will know that Britain's most successful haul was in 1924, when they won four medals.

Has the 56-strong GB team, touted as one our strongest ever contingents, got what it takes to break that record?

Handily, we've profiled the 10 leading British contenders pushing for a podium finish. Read more here.

Welcome to Russia. Welcome to Sochi. Welcome to the 22nd edition of the Winter Olympics.

In a little under an hour - 20:14 local time (16:14 GMT) to be exact - the Sochi 2014 Games will officially begin with a 160-minute glittering opening ceremony.

Image source, Reuters

The £30bn budget has been spent, the 98 gold medals have been beautifully crafted and the 2,871 athletes are settled into the athletes' village. Years of hard work all comes down to this.

Over the next 16 days of competition, those athletes - from 87 National Olympic Committees - will compete in 15 disciplines in the hope of having a precious Olympic gold medal - which is actually 525 grams silver and only six grams gold - placed around their neck.

The stage is set. The athletes are ready. Let the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics begin.