In pair figure skating, Americans Rena Inoue and John Baldwin landed the first Triple Throw-Axel in Olympic competition. In the replay, you can easily see Inoue’s movements - thanks to a new feature of the Torino Olympics. Open space.
The general lack of crowds at the pairs figure-skating competition was hard to ignore. Large gaps of lower-section seating was completely unclaimed. Entire rows of expensive seats behind the judges are completely empty. It made the games feel a little cheaper - like a UVSC (or high-school girl’s) basketball game. Torino is supposed to be a bigger city than Salt Lake - so where are the crowds?
If you look closely, most of the “spectators” in this shot are actually ushers.
Did the Olympic Marching Band leave their seats to go get ready to play at halftime or something? What’s with the gigantic hole there in the stands?
In high definition, I bet you can count the number of fans
The move to 12 judges was a secret ploy to increase attendance.
Earlier, there was a close-up shot that showed fans in the lower-left section up close. When we paused it, we could clearly see that of the three spectators we saw - two of them were talking to each other and one was knitting.
Please offer me some explanation for the attendance here. Best explanation wins a high-five. (Note: High-five only available while supplies last, and while I feel like it. High-five will be given in whatever style I deem appropriate - either “up high” or “down low.” A sideways high-five will not be given in this competition. For offical rules, please write your Senator.)
February 12th, 2006 at 5:49 am
1. instructions as to how to get to the events were written in swahili…
2. Taking a cure from professional baseball where they block off certain seats so the batter can see the ball better in certain lighting conditions they have blocked off seats that are hoping to help the Italy skaters as they are actually crowd shy. They figure that other atheletes only perform well in front of crowds, thereby increasing Italy’s chances at gold.
3. Like the LA Olympics of ‘84 the publicity run up of the games told everyone that the games were going to be very crowded — so everyone stayed home. In LA they were handing the tickets out in the street trying to get locals to go. It was good for locals — not a big boon for hotel and associated businesses.
February 12th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
it cost too much, or they are waiting for the hockey games to start attending
February 13th, 2006 at 12:09 am
Very cool article on the Pairs Skating…Check out my coverage of the Throw Triple Axel and Michelle Kwan at http://michiganrafter.blogspot.com
February 14th, 2006 at 7:09 am
There were translation problems in the title of the event, and we all know how prejudiced the Italians are against pears.