Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games Break Ticket, Online Visitor Records

The 2014 Sochi Paralympic Winter Games have already broken records for ticket sales and online visitors. As of Sunday, Sochi has sold 287,000 tickets, beating the previous record set at the 2010 Vancouver Paralympics by 57,000 sales. As of Saturday, 45,000 people visited the Olympic Park and more than 2,000 people attended the evening medals ceremony in Rosa Khutor. The Games are also proving an online success, with more people visiting the Int'l Paralympic Committee's website www.paralympic.org in the first 24 hours of the Games than the whole of the Vancouver Paralympics, which spanned 10 days (IPC). R-SPORT reported in October, IPC President Philip Craven "raised concerns about the issue, but it appears they have been in vain." Craven: "We were concerned that there weren’t enough tickets that had been sold by then and things have changed. We have many discussions with different authorities, particularly with the organizing committee and our pleasure is that in a five-month period things have changed" (R-SPORT, 3/7).