Australia's Winter Olympic athletes will pay for the sins of Summer Games counterparts with an alcohol ban in the Sochi athletes' village.
Launching the 100-day countdown to the showpiece in Russia on Wednesday, team Chef de Mission Ian Chesterman revealed he would follow the lead of 2016 Rio Olympics team boss Kitty Chiller and make the Australian section of the Games village an alcohol-free zone.
Chesterman said while drunkenness hadn't been an issue among Australia's Winter Olympians in the past the "time is right" to impose such restrictions.
It follows Chiller's pledge last week to make the Rio Olympic village and the flight back to Sydney a dry zone in a bid to curb athlete misbehaviour following problems with some partying athletes who disrupted teammates at last year's London Olympics.
"We're taking the same move in Sochi from an Olympic village point of view," Chesterman said.
"We want to give every athlete the opportunity to prepare and perform at their best - and we believe that's best achieved by taking the alcohol issue out of the village.
"I've got to say, it's not been an issue in my time and I've been involved in the team since 1994.
"I don't actually sense it's a problem, but I think the time is right to do it."
Unlike previous Winter Olympics, where athletes were spread out across the host city to be closer to their respective event venues, most of the Australian team will be based at one site in Sochi.
"These Games we're not in sub-site accommodation ... we have one village which has 80 per cent of our team in," he said.
"It's an unusual circumstance for us, so we just think it's a good way of ensuring everybody who's staying in that confined space has a good opportunity to compete and perform at their best."
Chesterman, who has targeted an ambitious top 15 finish on the medal tally, said some lessons had been learnt from Australia's London Olympic problems but was confident things would be different in Russia next February.
"We will have a few lessons learnt out of life I think - not just the Summer Games team," he said.
"(But) I think we shouldn't overplay the London experiences. The vast, vast, vast majority of Olympians represented Australia with distinction and I'm absolutely confident that this group of athletes will do so as well."
Having recently visited the host city, Chesterman added that he was "very comfortable" with Russia's security situation and gay rights issues - both of which have marred the build-up to the event.
He said he was comforted by president Vladimir Putin's promise on Monday that gay and lesbian athletes and guests would feel at ease despite his country's new "homosexual propaganda" ban.
"We've had very strong assurances in the past leading into the Games from leading Russian officials - but now that we have the President come out very strongly yesterday and give us that assurance, I think everybody can go to the Games relaxed and enjoy themselves," he said.
