Another name was added Friday to the crowded mayoral election in Sochi, which will host the 2014 Winter Olympics, as A Just Russia announced its local leader will vie for the seat.

Viktor Kurpitko, head of A Just Russia's branch in the Black Sea resort, is the latest entry to the country's hottest political show this year.

Several high-profile candidates, including opposition politician Boris Nemtsov and prominent businessman Alexander Lebedev, have announced plans to run.

Another big name linked to the race is Andrei Lugovoi, the State Duma deputy who faced murder charges in Britain in connection with the 2006 poisoning death of Russian emigre Alexander Litvinenko in London.

Lugovoi, who represents the ultranationalist Liberal Democractic Party in the Duma, will decided next week whether to enter the Sochi race, his spokeswoman told The Moscow Times on Friday.

Even former Bolshoi ballerina Anastasia Volochkova says she is mulling a bid.

"I think I would do a good job. In the run up to the Olympics the idea of having a ballerina as the city mayor has something beautiful, good and bright about it," Volochkova told RIA-Novosti on Wednesday.

Other potential candidates include Stanislav Koretsky, the head of a Sochi arm wrestling federation, and two local pensioners. United Russia has not yet announced a candidate but is expected to nominate acting Sochi Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov.

The plethora of candidates "gives the election a rather farcical character," but whomever United Russia nominates is likely to win, said Alexei Makarkin, an analyst at Center for Political Technologies, said Friday.

While Nemtsov, a Sochi native, and Lebedev "want to turn the election into a serious campaign, the appearance of candidates such as Lugovoi makes the election not serious, it turns it into a gossip column," Makarkin said.

So far, 11 candidates have officially registered with Sochi's electoral commission, including Nemtsov, Interfax reported Friday. The deadline for candidates to submit their applications is March 26.

The election is scheduled for April 26. The mayor's term of office is five years.

Meanwhile, Lebedev told Gazeta.Ru on Friday that former independent Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov — a columnist for The Moscow Times — will join the leadership of the Independent Democratic Party of Russia, a party founded by Lebedev and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.