I witnessed something quite sad yesterdat afternoon, but let me give you the background before I share my biggest human-generated dissapointment during the Olympics so far.I noticed the ticket office finally opened so I stood in the line waiting for the tickets. The office was a small space with four tables, staffed by volunteers who were being guided by American supervisors standing behind their backs (on the scale of 1-10, the capability of the volunteers seemed to be at level 2 and the capability of the supervisors at 10, however, for some reason, it all had to go through the volunteers first). The line quickly started growing-it took me about 45 minutes to get inside the office where I was able to sit while I was waiting for another hour and then 20 minutes buying the tickets (some coaches took as long as 45-50 minutes buying theirs).
Just before it was my turn, two guys, one a tall, African guy, the oher a Swedish guy got into a heated conversation as to who should have gotten help first. Their exchange started to culminate very quickly and had it not been for a quick move on the side of one of the supervisors who asked one of the guys to move to another table, I am sure they would have gotten into a fight. I was so taken aback and saddened by all this (the Swede was right by the way-but who cares...). I wish I did not have to witness that. I guess, even athletes on their Olympic highs are prone to the unpleasant behaviors if you have them wait in a long line at a high temperature for long enough...
In any case, I was hardly able to get all the ticket I wanted for (I had more, but the computer crashed the first time I tried to pay....meanwhile the coaches on the tables next to me were buying hundreds of tickets for their teams...). However, I was able to get Aleksandar tickets for Monday and Tuesday night athletics which has some pretty awsome finals, including 1500m, 3000m steeple chase, and many others). I got myself a ticket to see a few swimming events tomorrow morning. I tried for gymnastics, but, not suprisingly, everything was sold out. In any case, I am to see some swimming and will post some pictures later this afternoon.
Posts
4 comments:
Zuzana,
I am really enjoying reading your blog. This last entry made me want to reply.
I was a spectator at the '96 games and was hoping to buy velodrome tickets the day of the event knowing they were likely sold out. As we were walking up to the venue there was a coach or official from a certain country with a wad of tickets in his hand. We foolishly thought he was giving away some of his extras but in fact he was selling them. We watched him greedily rip off a small family. It was sad.
I am surprised they are making atheltes buy the tickets. There seem to be so many empty seats on TV.
Hello.
Thanks for your post. That's just too bad. You will be glad to know that following a few instances of greediness, they posted a notice that one could only buy 25 tickets at any one time.
As for the athletes and tickets... You can go to any event as long as it's within your "event range". So, swimmers can go to any swimming for free, gymnasts to any gymnastics, and so on. Then, we can also request tickets for free- our federations make the request and we have to wait and see if they have enough tickets to give us. There is usually tickets for athletes for things like weight lifting, but it's a lot harder if not impossible to get really cool tickets-like those for tennis or gymnastics or any finals really. But, I think I will try to go to at least one more event before the marathon (I am hoping to get into the gymanstics gym tomorrow to see the women's team final).
Hey Zuzana!
I am so loving reading your blog updates. Thank you so much! I am counting down until I watch your Olympic Race experience unfold!!
Good Luck!
Top athletes are by far not immune from bad behavior. If they were, you would not have had to test them for drugs.
Post a Comment