SOCHI, Russia (AP) ― Russian President Vladimir Putin scolded government officials Wednesday over a two-year delay and huge cost overruns in the construction of the ski jump facility for the Sochi Olympics.

The 2014 Winter Games, which open one year from Thursday, are expected to cost $51 billion, making it the most expensive Olympics in history.

Putin toured some of the Olympic venues on Wednesday, a day ahead of festivities marking the one-year countdown. He also met with members of the International Olympic Committee, including Jean-Claude Killy, head of the IOC’s coordination commission for Sochi.

“Today the experts say that 80 percent of the work is finished,” Killy told Putin through a translator. “Still there is one object that requires more efforts to be concentrated on it: It is the ski jump facility, and you know that.”

On a visit to the site, Putin grilled government officials on the delay and the cost overruns. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who is overseeing preparations for the Olympics, was forced to acknowledge during a lengthy, nationally televised exchange that the cost of building the ski jump facility had soared to $265 million from $40 million.

Kozak also had to explain that state-controlled Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, had taken over the project in May from a company owned by the vice president of the Russian Olympic Committee, Akhmed Bilalov.

“So it turns out that the vice president of the Olympic Committee is dragging out the construction. Well done! You are doing a good job,” Putin said sarcastically. The two ski jumps have been completed, but the rest of the complex is scheduled for completion in July.

At the end of his tour, Putin told officials and private investors to keep an eye on expenses.

IOC’s Rogge defends high costs

With the Winter Olympics a year away, IOC president Jacques Rogge praised Sochi organizers on Wednesday and defended the $51 billion price tag.

Speaking in an interview with the Associated Press in the Black Sea resort, Rogge said he was impressed by the preparations for Russia’s first Winter Olympics.

“The site is very compact, it’s high quality and is situated in beautiful surroundings,” Rogge said.

Rogge is touring the Olympic venues ahead of the one-year countdown, which will be marked with a dazzling ice show on Thursday. Most of the venues have already been completed, while thousands of workers are still finishing up some Olympic facilities.

Russian authorities last week announced the latest costs related to the games, saying total spending would come to about $51 billion, which would make Sochi the most expensive Olympics in history.

Rogge said a great deal of the money is going to infrastructure projects, including new roads and railways, which will serve the development of the entire region for decades to come.

“You have to put it into proportion,” Rogge said.

“The organization of the games is not going to cost a lot of money. But the government ... wished to develop the whole area. You cannot just take the cost of the train and the tunnels and the road into the cost of the games because this tunnel and the train and the road are not meant for two weeks of competition, they are meant for generations to last.”

Rogge also dismissed any concerns about the weather, saying organizers had contingency plans in place in case of adverse conditions. Warm temperatures and rain disrupted some of the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events at the 2010 Vancouver Games.