Olympics brass positive, or not, about crowds

BEIJING -- There was a lot of talk earlier in the summer about the rush on tickets for Olympic events by the Chinese people.

So where are they?

Give the Chinese credit so far. They have organized the Games well. But many of the venues aren't even half full of spectators.

To be fair, this is a common refrain during the Summer Games. The crowds can hardly be called crowds during the first week of competition. They start coming during the weekend. And the momentum carries over until the closing ceremony.

China was supposed to be different, though, because, well, there are so many people here. It's the most populous country in the world. You'd think it could fill up an arena, even for Greco-Roman wrestling.

The International Olympic Committee is concerned about the attendance, especially because of the way it looks on television. No one likes to see empty seats.

But the IOC also doesn't want to say anything that in any way can be interpreted as criticism.

So here was the response Wednesday from the IOC's executive director, Gilbert Felli, when asked about the attendance.

"I would not say we are not pleased,'' he said. "But where I would say we are not praising as much concerns the issue of spectators at some of the venues -- you can take it as not being happy because I like to be performing at 100%. I would like to have, always, all the stadiums full. But if I compare it to past Games, I can be pleased because we are not the worst and we are even better in some of the events.''

Priceless.

-- Randy Harvey

Photo: Spectators watch the archery competition in the Olympic Greeen Archery Field at the Beijing Olympics on Tuesday. Credit: Nicolas Asfouri / AFP / Getty Images

Comments

[diana]

Empty seats happen because thousands of people around the world were scammed by fake agents and had been getting fake tickets instead (largely from a scam website beijingticketing dotcom, the scammer Alan Scott from UK should be burned alive! I can't believe this slip the detection of the Olympics Committee) which obviously wouldn't allow them to attend the Olympics. It is also sad because there are scalpters who bought the real tickets in mass quantities and tried to sell them in black market for hefty price. Those who wanted to attend, couldn't get tickets, and weren't willing to pay the scalpters. Also, China turned down lots of visa applications overestimating the olympics attendance. My parents for example weren't able to get visas because they said the visa reserve was out. Now that we know they still need ppl, we all may apply for another visa and watch the rest of the game if there are still opportunities.

[Joe]

The journalism coverage of the Olympics is high school level. We have events with 1/4 of the seats filled, lip syncing singers, hundreds of rejected US visas for no reason and an ungodly obvious cheating Chinese gymnastics team. The criticism has been non-existent. Simply look at any 16 year old Chinese American and look at the "16 year olds" on the Chinese team. Some of those girls are lucky to be 12. You dont have to take my word for it. The two top US Coaches joked the Chinese team hasnt even grown in all its baby teeth. Here is the little secret that US journalists wont tell you because they dont want you to go find your news elsewhere: If Journalists speak bad of China, they wont be let into the country to cover stories in the future. That is why the LA Times and others in the media are too scare to do a full expose on the cheating. Oh. Did I mention that a 2000 Chinese gymnast admitted to lying about her age? Did I also mention that Romainia has several gymnasts who had admitted to cheating by lying about their age? Now you know why Romainia has been such a force over the years and why their girls were always midgets compared to our girls. I cant believe Im spelling out an easy news story that will get a lot of attention for any journalist, yet none is picking this up. Is 5 minutes of research too much of a journalists time to prove Im right?

[ALLEN,Roman]

gosip,dirty mouth