Does anybody else feel bad for the Olympic athletes this year? Watching the games (I love watching volleyball, Jaime loves gymnastics, and there’s some good drama in swimming this year, so we’ve been watching a ton lately) this year it seems like the audiences have been virtually non-existant. Is this a side-effect of all the terrorist threats? Or are they usually this empty and I just didn’t notice.
One choice quote that brings the point home was by an american swimmer discussing her upcoming race. This was her third olympics and she was being asked if that experience was helpful. She replied that it was, and that the crowds weren’t all that intimidating anyway since they had a bigger audience at the US qualifiers than they did at the actual olympic meet.
Does seem to be a lot less people at the Olympics, I thought it was just due to the size they had built the stadiums this year.
Maybe not. Apparently according to Google the heat has had something to do with it too.
By the way, forgot to ask, is the hurricane affecting you guys?
Left by TheMole on August 16th, 2004
It tore a huge swatch through the state, missing Gainesville completely (though the forecast just hours before landfall had it heading directly here). The hurricane went over my parent’s house, John’s parent’s house, and my wife’s parent’s house, and yet none had any significant problems other than short power and phone outages (though I don’t know how long the outage lasted at John’s parents, I know the other two were back on fairly soon). We got fairly lucky. I’m watching the news now and they’re doing all sorts of human interest stories about people coming together to help those who got hit. All in all pretty cool. Especially considering how few people actually died compared to how many could have for a storm of that size.
Left by Jordan on August 16th, 2004
Good to hear.
Left by Evan on August 16th, 2004
I didn’t watch the Olympics in Sydney, but I remember that the stands were fairly empty in Atlanta, except for the high profile sports like Basketball and Gymnastics. Also, remember that we’re currently in the early rounds of many of the “big” sports, so I wouldn’t expect large crowds.
Left by Matt on August 16th, 2004
A friend of mine suggested that the organizers should have tried to attract international spectators with free or dirt cheap tickets and then make money off of them on the hotels, meals, tours, etc. I think that’s a great idea, but no olympiad businessmen with their share of common business sense and pride would ever consider this, of course.
Left by Gin on August 31st, 2004