Organizers said that fewer than half the tickets for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics "have been sold with about five months to go until the first Games in South America," according to Karolos Grohmann of REUTERS. A total of 7.5 million tickets "were issued for the Aug. 5-21 Games."
Rio 2016 Communications Dir Mario Andrada said, "About 47 percent of tickets have been sold." Andrada said that ticket revenues had reached 74% -- or $194M -- of the overall target, mainly "due to more expensive passes to premium events and the opening ceremony having been sold already." Andrada:
"The premium events and the opening ceremony are technically sold out." Andrada also said that "Brazil would have necessary doping legalization in place by a March 18 deadline set by the World Anti-Doping Agency to conform with global legalization," or risk leaving a $25M testing lab in Rio unused. He said that a presidential decree would be issued on March 15, three days ahead of the deadline "to solve this problem" as there was no sufficient time for passage of a law through parliament first (REUTERS, 3/2).
END TO HEADGUARDS: The London GUARDIAN reported following its move to allow professional boxers to compete in Rio, the Int'l Boxing Association (AIBA) "proposed to unanimously end the use of headguards" for all of its elite men’s competitions.
The AIBA "adopted the change for amateur fighters three years ago and the decision was widely considered a formality for the Olympics."
The move "received clearance on Tuesday when the IOC executive board said it was up to AIBA to apply its own rules and the Olympic body would not interfere" (GUARDIAN, 3/1).
