Steven Bradbury says the Winter Olympics is set to take over the appeal of the summer Games

TRAVELLING the globe, competing in four Winter Olympics and commentating on another three, I have seen a lot.

The Sochi Winter Olympics has been a huge hit, says Steven Bradbury. Picture: Getty Images

By Steven Bradbury, Olympic Champion and TEN Commentator

Travelling the globe, competing in four Winter Olympics and commentating on another three, I have seen a lot.

What Russia has produced here is truly incredible. Walking around Olympic Park in Sochi is surreal. Look left, look right, look in any direction and there is another giant stadium.

Weaving between the stadiums are the ripple strips for the Russian Grand Prix track.

In the centre is a cauldron so big they probably have to divert the local air traffic to avoid it. The flame powering from the top must be using enough gas to launch a Russian cosmonaut into space once every minute.

Everything is massive, I feel like a hobbit walking around in the land of the giants.

But I’m not alone: Russian president Vladimir Putin has built it and they have come. Sochi lies on the shores of the Black Sea and the Olympics has created an inland sea, of people!

The Olympic park is buzzing with excitement; the stadiums are packed and “new school” Winter Olympians are busting out triple corks all over the place.

A triple cork means four 360 degree twists and three back flips. In the new Olympic event of ski slopestyle, Aussie Russ Henshaw came within a bee’s dick of sticking his triple cork and capturing our second medal at this games.

Of course Queen Torah got the silver in the halfpipe, yeeeaaahhhh ! More “extreme” is following with Lydia Lassila competing overnight in the aerials, Torah and Belle Brockhoff in the snowboard cross today and Chumpy Pullin tomorrow.

You might say I’m biased but the Winter Olympics has always been cooler than its summer counterpart - the speed, the air time, the risk factor and the pile ups.

We saw Chinese short-track skater LI jianrou “Do a Bradbury” in the women’s 500m a few days back. My phone was ringing off the hook with Swedish media after some bloke named Emil ‘Did a Bradbury’ in the Cross Country sprint race.

The Winter Games has evolved, it is the X-Games on steroids. Gen X and Gen Y are tuning in like never before. The Summer Games had better gets its head out of the sand, and quick.

Where is skateboard halfpipe, skateboard street, BMX halfpipe, BMX dirt and surfing?

I know we won a bunch of medals in yachting in London, but it’s not great television and equestrian at the Olympics? Horses? What century are we in?

Maybe the International Olympic Committee will wait until the television rights for the Summer X-Games are bigger than the Olympics before it decides to change. That time may not be that far away.

Back to the Winter Games and Sochi 2014 is powering. The Russians are smiling with pride at what they have produced. We know its the greatest ever spend at almost $60 billion but will it top Sydney and be the greatest ever?

Maybe, but not to this Aussie. Sure I’m biased towards the Winter Games, but Sydney will always be the best.

We will find out in time if they continue to come to Sochi after the games are over. At this moment, Russia is definitely ‘Putin on the Ritz’.

XXII Sochi Winter Olympics. Catch all of the action live exclusively on TEN.