Olympic Update 9: Empty Seats, Heavy Hearts

Olympic organisers continued to come under attack concerning the number of empty seats at events today. This has caused Lord Coe a considerable amount of embarrassment, but he has remained defiant, explaining:

“There are tens of thousands of people at this moment within the accredited ‘family’ that are trying to figure out what their day looks like, where they are going to be asked to go to, frankly working out how you divide your time.”

Many believe that, considering the mass tomfoolery surrounding the allocation of overpriced tickets to the public –  in which potential purchasers had to enter a lottery-style system whereby they had to complete a series of mental agility tests, play three cards of bingo and win a church raffle before they would be considered worthy of being allocated tickets to events in which they had only a passing interest – it would have been nice if at least a few of the accredited ‘family’ had bothered to ‘divide their time’ in such a way that it meant that their privileged arses were on their reserved seats occasionally.

The Olympic ‘family’ trying to figure out what their day looks like

Luckily, the British army have once again been on hand to close the gaps, this time as unwilling spectators:

"Is that one of our missiles?"

It appears, however, that Olympic VIPs are not wholly to blame for empty seats; some have been left empty due to Olympic security staff not wanting to let in the Welsh.  Huw Jones, the chief executive of Sport Wales, was allegedly bundled out of the aquatics centre recently, despite there being hundreds of empty seats available. He was reportedly approached by two burly security guards during the men's two width freestyle event, given some old flim-flam about his pass, and then battered to within an inch of his life with a German competitor’s water wings. Mr Jones was said to be “very disappointed” by the situation.  Welsh cyclist Geraint Thomas suffered a similar indignity, saying that he struggled to get tickets at all. “I struggled to get tickets, managed to get them in the third round,” he gibbered, “I’m not sure of the reasons why.” 

It’s because he’s Welsh. Shocking.

Welshaphobia aside, the whole of Wembley stadium was almost left empty for the duration of the games as police mislaid the keys to the venue during last week’s preparations. After searching all of his pockets and even returning home to check the mantelpiece and his trousers that were in the washing basket, the unnamed officer responsible eventually admitted defeat and called out a local locksmith, avoiding disappointment for the dozens of fans eager to watch the women’s football.

While we are assured that everything is being done to fill the empty Olympic seats, including corporate tickets being resold at the last minute, the inescapable fact is that there are huge gaps in the crowds due to many of the events being so mind-numbingly boring.   

Apparently though, for reasons as yet unexplained, it has been standing room only at the beach volleyball.