Nearly 300,000 spectators watch Olympic events yesterday
11/8/2008 17:34
A Beijing Olympics official said today that a total of 290,288 spectators
watched the Games competition yesterday.
Sun Weide, a media official with the
Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee, said at a press conference:"On Aug.
10 alone, we received 290,288 spectators and 512 teams in all the venues with
3,865 athletes, 2,774 team officials, 1,254 technicians and 7,731
journalists."
Asked why there were some empty seats in the stands in certain
matches despite the organizers' claim that all tickets of the Games were sold
out, Sun said:"I think there are some misunderstandings on this issue."
He
took yesterday's beach volleyball competition as an example, which began at 9
a.m. but had sold tickets for the whole morning. "Some ticket holders may prefer
to watch the competition beginning at 11 o'clock, so maybe the venues were not
full at 9 a.m., but I believe at 11 a.m. the venue would be packed with
spectators," Sun explained.
Giselle Davies, spokesperson of the International
Olympic Committee, added:"We have seen in the previous Olympic Games that the
venues are not filled to the capacity. Also, we can be mindful of the fact that
the organizers did not have a lot of luck yesterday with the
weather."
Xinhua
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