The organizers of the Sochi Games said on Sunday they had sold 92% of the tickets available for the first day of main competition but "admitted thousands had not made it on time due to tight security," according to the AFP. The first day of medal competition on Saturday saw "reasonable crowds but some banks of empty seats could still be seen for most disciplines." Organizing committee spokesperson Alexandra Kosterina, however, said that "92 percent of the available tickets for Saturday had been sold and 'we are happy with that.'" Kosterina confirmed that "thousands of spectators had not made it to their event on time, or at all, due to the tough security controls that created long queues." Kosterina: "People need to understand what time to travel and you need to come in advance" (AFP, 2/9). In N.Y., Orwall, Terlep & McKay reported a few events "played to virtual sellout crowds and enthusiastic spectators: notably biathlon, the ski-and-shoot Russian favorite, and team figure skating, in which the home squad held a commanding lead." But "other venues in both the Olympic Park and the so-called 'mountain cluster' high above Sochi were plagued by sometimes large swaths of empty seats." And there were "a lot of echoes in the empty corners of the arenas for events such as women's hockey and speedskating." Even one of the Games' "hippest events, the action-sports event known as slopestyle snowboarding, appeared to have hundreds of empty seats, even though organizers declared it a sellout in the 6,250-seat Rosa Khutor Exreme Park." Some of the "lackluster attendance has come during preliminary competitions, which many fans, sponsors and even members of national sporting federations prefer to skip" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2/8). REUTERS' Karolos Grohmann reported Sochi Olympics organizers said that the empty seats were "due to late arrivals and not necessarily because of tight security." Fans have to "undergo stringent security checks as part of the Games safety operation with Islamist militants from the North Caucasus region having threatened to attack Russia's first winter Olympics." Spectators have to undergo "several checks, especially in the mountain venues, delaying their entry." Kosterina said, "Yes, we had some problems with the Russian mentality in a lot of ways that Russians like to come to the event not prior but as close as possible. We are tying to alert people...to come in advance" (REUTERS, 2/9).
