Athletics Stadium is half empty most of time

I've had bigger meets in my back garden.

They are a passionate lot though, if they did manage to fill the stadium and a had a few local heros to cheer it would shat all over anything else.

As per the boxing last night.

thats what happens when erse attends the olympics

apparently they won't let people in

without nose pegs

tickets priced between £60 - £200, with the average monthly wage of £500, explains why a lot of the locals arent there...shame.

Absolute disgrace that cheap or even free tickets were not made available.The Olympics aren't a big deal anywhere in Latin America.Brazilian government spent so much on these games.Corruption abounds as always in Latin America.These games have not benefited the Brazilian people whatsoever.Just lined the pockets of a few rich developers.

30 euro would sound right to me.........why would anyone pay 100 euro to watch a sporting event which is on TV?

30 euro in a country where monthly minimum wage (if you are lucky enough to have a job) is 240?
The average wage of £500 listed above is greatly skewered by the tiny elite who are loaded.Most make between 240 to 400 euro, if they make anything at all.

Economy is rely bad right now in Rio too.All over Brazil really.

brazil has the southern hemisphere perfect climate but after that it sounds like a right dump.......

To put it into context, even 30 euro tickey, would be like someone in London spending 10 percent of their monthly income (maybe £250?) on an event they have no real interest in.

It's a beautiful country.Really friendly people.Parts of it are pretty bad.But, Sao Paulo and south is pretty advanced

Rio is...kind of a dump in places (a lot of places) that's true.Away from Copacabana and Barra etc.Downtown and the north of the city are pretty bad.

DAVY, i dont know if you have read about the thefts from the athletes village, and various other muggings, hold ups etc.

  shame really that you have to steal to put food on the table.

  i also think the press have been told about negative reporting.

Yeah, crime is a big, big problem in Brazil (especially Rio).Brazil has huge problem with crack addiction.Its really an epidemic.
You see crack addicts alllll over Rio.

Lot of the violent robberies committed by drug addicts but thefts from villages of rich athletes I can kind of understand.Things are really bad, desperate situations for many people.I might do the same, if I were in their situation.

Stewards into the Muggings of the Yanks

yes, i read that the british long jumper lost his mobile phone, and when he spoke to more athletes it seems he wasnt the only one.

but like you said it must be a great temptation to take a £250 phone if you only earn that a month.

case, i read that about the taxi they were in being stopped by fake policemen, that must have been scary as guns were involved. !!

my mate had a gun put to him once when we were over in southernireland, it turned out they wanted his watch, which he couldnt remove quick enough

... it turns out my mate had bought the watch a year earlier in thailand for £5.   

may as well have held it in the chit chat pub

I wonder how the Rio crime rate today compares with that of Los Angeles in 1984.

It's much, much worse.I googled it, LA had 2,717 murders in 1984 out of a population of 25 million.

Rio, whose population (6.32 million) is over three times less, has has had 1,700 murders in the first three months of this year.

It's not getting any better, so the figure at the end of the year should be around 6,800.
So, 2,717 in LA v 6,800 in RJ.

Taking the relative populations into account, Rio's murder rate is about 10 times higher than that of Los Angeles.

Well, RJ today v LA in 1984 I mean.

Incidentally, London's population is less than Rio.Imagine if more than 16 people were being murdered a day in London

I'm off there for the Paralympics in two weeks.

Looks like it'll be the families of the athletes in the boat and a few GB officials that'll be spectating.

Oh well, just have to shout louder I suppose.

A shame indeed that the 'progressive' (LOLOL) country of Brazil hasn't had more spectators attending the feast.

Surely this most  'diverse' , "culturally enriched" of nations would have given away thousands of free tickets to those 'vibrant' people of the favelas to attend the events, to show the world's visitors what they can offer?

No????

As for the Paralympics, the spectator numbers will presumably be lower again, unless every schoolchild is bussed in their for free. At gunpoint.

I'm guessing that Brazil isn't quite sophisticated enough just yet for the population to feel they have to pretend they are all enthusiastic Paralympics viewers.

* there

Roger, as long as you take precautions you should be OK.Never walk alone at night, don't stay in downtown or one of the worse areas, even though it's cheaper there.

Don't carry much around with you (no expensive cameras around your neck), know where you are going (in Rio favelas are really close to good areas).If anything does happen DONT resist, they just want your money they don't want to hurt you.

Above all...don't worry too much.I've been to Rio several times and nothing has happened to me (I do speak Portuguese which helps).Vast majority of murders happen in favelas (which you shouldn't be in)

Just wait until the charabanc rolls on, the stadia will be fully empty all of the time

Another thing.The military and the police will be out in force for this one.They don't mess around.Brazil is obsessed with its national image.They don't want tourists being mugged, so this is probably the safest time to visit there.

Davy
     18 Aug 16 10:41   

Roger, as long as you take precautions you should be OK.Never walk alone at night, don't stay in downtown or one of the worse areas, even though it's cheaper there.

Don't carry much around with you (no expensive cameras around your neck), know where you are going (in Rio favelas are really close to good areas).If anything does happen DONT resist, they just want your money they don't want to hurt you.

Above all...don't worry too much.I've been to Rio several times and nothing has happened to me (I do speak Portuguese which helps).Vast majority of murders happen in favelas (which you shouldn't be in)

Cheers for the heads up Davy

We're staying in Ipanema, which is pretty close to the Lagoa for the Rowing.

We've received good briefings from British Rowing, which pretty much squares with what you are saying regarding security. We won't be going to the Favelas (don't like the idea of 'cheap holidays in other peoples misery' / slum tourism) and we've got a couple of big blokes in our party, so hopefully we'll be okay.

You will be fine.Ipanema is a nice area.Walking around in groups makes things much, much safer.Yeah, that favela tourism is unpleasant.

One last tip...try to learn some basic Portuguese words.Just simple things like Obrigado,Tchau,Onde está etc. Brazilians are very proud people and they like it if you try to use some Portuguese, doesn't matter how bad it is.Just that they see you making the effort.
Cariocans are nice people, generally very friendly, although not as much as the rest of the country (imo)

A great shame that greed prevents less well off people from attending.

They would rather have 10,000 people paying £100.00 than 20,000 paying £50.00!

Back in the 80's a friend who was a bit of a pothead got a dodgy return ticket to Rio for £50.

First day in Rio he was offered drugs so went down a back alley and was  promptly robbed at knife point.  He still had his return ticket and went straight to the airport and got the first flight home.  Took about 3 days in total to fly to the other side of the world, get mugged and be back in time for work on Monday.

Aunty Post
Joined: 14 Nov 03
Replies: 11785
    18 Aug 16 11:29   

A great shame that greed prevents less well off people from attending.

They would rather have 10,000 people paying £100.00 than 20,000 paying £50.00!

This is the way Premier League Football in England is going.

Same thing with the lottery...double the price and get no more money!

It was probably with best intentions, or was it, that these games were awarded to Rio. However, all the evidence shows how difficult it is to make this work for the host city and it's inhabitants, particularly those at the lower end of the social scale. The only time we've seen the stadium full has been when Bolt has been in attendance and last night, for his 200 semi, don't think it actually was. Were the tickets for the football cheaper or is it that as it is the premier sport in the country, it was always going to fill out whereas athletics, never mind the other sports, are not really well supported there?

You do fear the stadiums here will be mostly lying empty in the future. If it was my decision I'd only have the Olympics in 4 rotating venues across the world and re-use the same facilities. North America, two cities in Europe and a south east Asia venue, such as Japan or even Australia.

4 rotating venues sounds very expensive

Actually that could be a new olympic sport.
'Keep up with the audience'

Aug 18, 2016 -- 1:59PM, jumper wrote:

It was probably with best intentions, or was it, that these games were awarded to Rio. However, all the evidence shows how difficult it is to make this work for the host city and it's inhabitants, particularly those at the lower end of the social scale. The only time we've seen the stadium full has been when Bolt has been in attendance and last night, for his 200 semi, don't think it actually was. Were the tickets for the football cheaper or is it that as it is the premier sport in the country, it was always going to fill out whereas athletics, never mind the other sports, are not really well supported there?You do fear the stadiums here will be mostly lying empty in the future. If it was my decision I'd only have the Olympics in 4 rotating venues across the world and re-use the same facilities. North America, two cities in Europe and a south east Asia venue, such as Japan or even Australia.

You are right, the tickets for football were cheaper.For example, the games in Manaus had womens football tickets starting at 40 reales (10 pounds) and mens football at 50 reales (12 pounds)
http://globoesporte.globo.com/am/olimpiadas/noticia/2016/06/ingressos-arena-...

People love it when you demonstrate a little knowledge of their language.

For example, if somebody tries to mug you in Brazil, just shout: "Filho da puta!" in his face. Don't worry about pronunciation, he'll correct any slight errors you may have made.

......by ensuring you will never be able to pronounce anything - bar a convincing death rattle - ever again

The 1815 St Leger winner was called Filho da Puta.

So where are all the spectators?

Tens of thousands of them watching the "Triathlon" for free.....

Could have saved a fortune building venus a quarter of the size imo

or cheap seats, problem the makers have to get the cash back. Olympic games can only be a success when surrounded by rich people.

I was held up at gunpoint by three men in Rio once....

I said you do know where I'm from. The Scottish weather is lousy, her indoors back home is a huge binge eating miserable ****, my hair has gone, my wallet won slimmer of the year two years running, Brazilian women hate ginger wig wearers with a pot belly and a funny accent. I said, go on then, shoot me. I heard three quick bangs and they went down like skittles. I got away with it but the tartan skirt was ruined.