Medvedev: Olympic games consolidated Russia

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday handed out the keys to a fleet of brand new Mercedes as prizes for the country's Olympic medalists at the Sochi Winter Games, RIA Novosti reports.

Russia finished a wildly successful home Olympics, which closed Sunday, at the top of the medal table with 13 golds, 11 silver and nine bronze for a historic high tally of 33.

In a ceremony at Vasilevsky Spusk, Medvedev congratulated 44 medalists and distributed the keys. Three classes of Mercedes were on offer for the three medal colors.

The cars come on top of prize money. Gold medalists have been promised $120,000, silver medalists $76,000, and bronze medalists $52,000.

Russia exceeded all expectations by topping the medal table for the first time in 20 years. In the process, it laid to rest the failure of Vancouver, when it won just three golds in a performance universally denounced as a national disaster.

"To put it straight, in the contemporary Russian history there was no event that consolidated our nation and united our people to such extent", RIA Novosti quotes Medvedev.