Samsung Sponsors 2014 Olympic Athletes with Galaxy Note 3

If you had the TV on during the previous summer Olympic games in London, you may have recalled more than several times the Samsung "whistle" jingle that'd play during all the commercials. If you had a Samsung Galaxy S3 that was being advertised at the time, you had a pretty good reason to change your notification sound. Now for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Samsung is back with the Galaxy Note 3.

Samsung yesterday announced in Moscow that it will be the "Worldwide Olympic Partner in the Wireless Communications Equipment category," and also introduced a collaboration with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on the "Samsung Smart Olympic Games" initiative to make the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games the most wireless, seamless and paperless Olympic Games ever.

Part of that has to do with the promotion of the Galaxy Note 3, which is named as the official Olympic Games phone for Sochi 2014. The IOC will provide Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 to all Sochi 2014 athletes, which means you'll likely see plenty of these in hands at the opening ceremony.

Just because Samsung is a South Korean company doesn't mean that it will only be supporting athletes in its home country. In fact, Samsung has already announced a handful of athletes to be part of its "Galaxy Team" for the upcoming winter games.

Tom's Hardware was invited to the announcement of the Canadian athletes that will be a part of the Galaxy team, which is composed of:

·      Steven Stamkos, Men’s Ice Hockey
·      Hayley Wickenheiser, Women’s Ice Hockey
·      Greg Westlake, Men’s Ice Sledge Hockey
·      Marie-Eve Drolet, Women’s Short Track Speed Skating
·      Michael Gilday, Men’s Short Track Speed Skating

Other announced athletes include:

Russia:

·      Evgeni Malkin,Men’s Ice Hockey

·      Nikita Kryukov, Ski and Sochi 2014 Ambassador

·      Evgeny Ustyugov, Men's Biathlon

·      Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Women's Figure Skating

·      Tatyana Volosozhar, Women's Figure Skating

·      Maxim Trankov, Men's Figure Skating

·      Tatyana Borodulina, Women's Short Track Speed Skating

·      Liudmila Privivkova, Women's Curling

·      Sergey Shilov, Para Skiing and Sochi 2014 Ambassador

·      Serafim Pikalov, Para Snowboarding

Italy:

·      Armin Zoeggeler, Men's Luge

Austria:

·      Gregor Schlierenzauer, Men's Ski Jump

USA:

·      Evan Strong, Para Snowboard

Samsung also revealed that it will be hosting a "Notes from Home" program that will allow Canadians to send personal messages to our athletes.  It's unclear if this program will be replicated for all the other competing countries.

What will definitely be available worldwide, however, is Samsung's WOW app, which will provide essential, up-to-date Games Time data and connectivity that are crucial to the Olympic Games operation. The public version of the WOW app will provide global sports fans with free, real-time access to news from the Games, including updated event schedules, the latest official results, medal counts and record statistics.

The 2014 Winter Olympic games in Sochi kicks off February 7, 2014.

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