The Russian Olympic Committee has announced a shortlist of candidate athletes for the 2018 Winter Olympics to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
 
The RIA Novosti news agency said the list of 729 Russian athletes that could represent Team Russia at the next Winter Olympics was announced on Friday. 
 
The list includes figure skater and Sochi Olympics gold medalist Adelina Sotnikova as well as Viktor Ahn, the Korean-born Russian short track skater whose Korean name is Ahn Hyun-soo.
 
Other Russian superstar athletes who made the list include ice hockey players Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Ilya Kovalchuk.
 
But the shortlist is expected to have a limited significance as preparations for the next four years have just begun.
 
Andrei Safronov, general manager of Russia’s national ice hockey team, noted that players on the list will be observed particularly closely. He added that the list can of course be changed and supplemented as many young talents can reach the level of playing for the national team in the next two or three years.