President Barack Obama cautioned that there is always “some risk” involved in large international events like the Winter Olympics, although he believes Sochi is safe.
“The Russian authorities understand the stakes here,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday. “They understand that there are potential threats that are out there, and we are coordinating with them.”
Obama and the first family are not attending the games, but the President said his administration is not discouraging Americans who do want to go to the Olympics.
He added that there is always some risk involved in attending such an event.
“I don’t want to completely discount those,” he told Tapper. “But as we’ve seen here in the United States, at the Boston Marathon, there were some risks if you have lone wolves or small cells of folks who are trying to do some damage.”
Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who led the organizing committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, has said that he’d feel comfortable sending his family to Sochi.
