The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in Sydney by Russian Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Russian Olympic Committee Alexander Zhukov and AOC President John Coates.

Under the agreement, the countries will exchange medical and sports personnel and coaches, and compete in bilateral competitions.

Australia has invited Russia to compete in the 2013 Australian Youth Olympic Festival in Sydney.

Australia also hopes its athletes can train in the venues being built ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

"Russia is dominant in winter and summer Olympic sport and our athletes, coaches and sports specialists will learn a great deal from them courtesy of this partnership," Coates said.

"Teams and individual athletes will compete in bilateral and multilateral events being held in both countries.

"There will be an exchange of coaches, medical and sports personnel and training camps will be organised using sports facilities belonging to the Russian federations and here in Australia,"

Ian Chesterman, the Chef de Mission of Australia's Winter Olympic team, visited Sochi recently and described the facilities and infrastructure being built as "mindblowing".


Australia is looking to build on the success of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics where Torah Bright (pictured) won gold in the snowboard halfpipe, Lydia Lassila gold in the freestyle aerials and Dale Begg-Smith silver in the moguls.

Twelve new events have been added to the programme in Sochi and Australia is excelling in one of them - slopestyle.

Anna Segal from Victoria won the gold medal in ski slopestyle at the 2011 World Titles in Utah back in February while another Australian Russ Henshaw the bronze medal in the men's event.

Today's announcement follows the bilateral agreement signed in July between the Olympic Committees of Australia and the United States for the same purposes.

The AOC also has existing agreements with several other countries, including Britain, Italy and Japan.

"The friendship between our Olympic Committees, our organisations, has a long, distinguished history," Zhukov said.

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