To think Rio has been shocking

[pleasemothermay1]

There is hardly any one in the seats even the foot ball and brizallians love foot ball

The pools are green no one can say why I hear a rugby athlete got injured they got lost on route to the hospital in abulance 😳

There are issues with transport

The ioc have said this has been one of the most diffcult games in a long time

Even the opening was very poor I no they didn't have much money so why not just do a carnival instead they tried to copy ours though the ages sort of thing but not very well play to your strengths I think some samba and carival theam would have been awesome.

Also some govermnet staff have not been paid I fear that it's unlikely the para games will be much better
Contrast to London were there wasn't a ticket going begging even for the para games

I think it's all well and good allowing emerging countries to have this but they must be able to afford it and also show that the tickets will be pitched at a price of the avarge wage

amd also that the cost of the games is not at the expense of paying your govermnet staff there will be no legacy at least we have had the good sense to sell some of our ventunes I don't think there is any vunue sitting empty

at least we have had the good sense to sell some of our ventunes

What is a ventune?

Was the moaning about empty seats at London not because people wanted them but the 'VIPs' didn't bother showing up?

The World Cup in Qatar is going to be the same I imagine. Empty. When they hosted the Asian Games they paid the migrant workers to fill the seats.

Beijing had empty seats.

What is troubling is the increase in underage girls being pumped associated with the games

*pimped

And the amount of racist and sexist commentary

I went to the 2004 Olympics in Athens after paying a fortune for various tickets ...think £175 each for men s diving final! When we were there so many seats were empty as locals just could/would not afford them. In the end officials were handing out tickets for free to passers by in Syntagma Square just to make up the numbers!!

It does seem pretty empty. It just seems a lot of money to spend in a country where there are people.living in shanty towns.

Unfortunately for Brazil Zika won't have helped the numbers and I doubt there'll be much of a legacy to help balance the books

The thing is I think you need to measure the appetite of the nation hosting for the event too. You can't just build a load of stadium and expect the worlds annual haul of tourists to rock up.

My experience of the London olympics was that schools were involved, the tickets were application and if you couldn't get any on the day at least you were in London and could see other stuff and watch them events in the big screens.

What I am trying to say was that it caught the mood. The organisers did a great job in creating competitiveness even in getting tickets. Then when the medals rolled it went crazy.

I really objected though to your "even" comment about tickets for the Paras. Have you watched Para events? They're often even better. Go Ellie!

Dh and I attended several events in London, including the Paralympics, and although a few rows of empty corporate/media etc. seats were sometimes noticeable, virtually every other seat was taken every time. It was nothing like the emptiness at Rio.

As for the G4S cock up, probably a good thing in the event, since the uniformed Forces staff who took it on were brilliant. I will confess to having been a sceptic over 2012 but was left very impressed by every aspect of it.

I feel sad for Rio, and for the athletes competing with so few to cheer them on, but I can well understand the locals keeping away because of their anger at so much money being spent when their economy is in dire straits, and there is so much poverty and corruption.

I think it's an unfortunate convergence of events - the Brazilian economy being much worse than when the games were awarded, Zika, and the high number of athletes being caught doping, past and present (and actually I have no issue with formerly banned athletes being booed by the crowd or cold shouldered by competitors- it's getting out of hand and until it becomes "you're caught once and your career is over" it won't stop). The commentary has left a lot to be desired (looking at you NBC) but I doubt it's impacted ticket sales .

I think there is very little buzz at this Olympics, it seems lack-lustre because of the swath of empty seats.

It all just seems like an incredible waste of money considering the miserable economic situation there that has caused a harsh and dangerous drop in living standards for the vast majority of Brazilians.

All that government investment in the Olympics could definitely of been spent better elsewhere imo.

The Brazilian economy has shrunk massively since the games were awarded to them. It's already a country with a massive rift between rich and poor, and many feel that the games just aren't accessible / relevant to them.
But this was the case with London 2012 too, I was working in a school in an adjacent borough of London and the hostility from the kids and parents was discernible. They just saw it as a vanity project.

I just don't think we can judge the two games using the same standards - it seems a bit arrogant to say that the 2012 Olympics were without problems. Security, empty seats, the farce with the stadium afterwards, and the poor planning by some borough councils (in Waltham Forest we had a road of food market stalls with no customers for 2 weeks as visitors weren't told that they could go via the station where the stalls were).

Don't get me wrong, London was fabulous, but it was not perfect, no Olympics has been. And I don't think anyone on the organising committee for Rio is sitting back thinking 'what a roaring success, my work is done'.

It's just not as black and white as 'Rio is crap'.

There weren't "vast numbers" of empty seats in London. Not relative to the numbers in each venue. There were some, probably because of sponsors not making use of their allocation and it was seen as being scandalous precisely because there was such a huge demand to purchase tickets - all the tickets that went on sale sold out, and every venue for every event was more or less full. However that was historically unprecedented, partly because the nation was wealthy enough to afford tickets, and also because almost every country in the world has a significant number of London based supporters. I went to see the early stages of a minority women's sport for countries that have no particular UK relevance because it was the only thing I could get affordable tickets for, and we had a great time in a packed crowd. But there is no way that that event would have had a more than 25% attendance in any other Olympics ever.

I don't think the OP liked the opening ceremony..... Quite frankly, I wouldn't imagine the organisers are that bothered about her opinion. There were probably a lot of Brazilians watching the opening to the 2012 Olympics and thinking WTF at all the NHS, Mr Bean and Mary Poppins references. I personally enjoyed it - the bit where it looked like they were jumping from roof to roof and it was all clever projections was great. Loved the bicycles bringing the teams in too.

All the rest is moans and hearsay... moans about a green pool that nobody seems to know is dangerous or not (most probably not), and something about an ambulance maybe getting lost. Or not. Yes there are lots of empty seats but London was the exception rather than the rule when it comes to filling seats. Brazil is a LONG way from affluent parts of the world with lots of disposable income to see sport - it's conceivable that you could pop to Paris/Rome/Barcelona from the UK for the weekend to catch an event, you wouldn't be able to pop to Rio.

It was an Egyptian MAN who refused to shake hands with an Israeli - if you're going to throw accusations around at least get your facts right.

I'm really enjoying the olympics and I liked the pared down opening ceremony. I think the numbers of sports needs to cut though. It's a shame when there are lots of empty seats though.

Zika was obviously not planned for.

And agree about the hostility - Glasgow hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2014 and although 90% of people were delighted to have the Games and really got into the spirit, there was a hardcore of whingers and complainers who didn't like that old, not fit for purpose buildings were being pulled down and replaced and whined about traffic, noise, tourists and pretty much everything else.

Surely the most important thing is lots and lots and lots of televised coverage of sports, especially of women doing sports which we never usually get to see much of at all in comparison with men's sports, with plenty of athletes setting personal bests and new Olympic and also world records. Maybe try to enjoy that?

I also think some people spend their entire lives criticising and labelling everything as "shit" or "shocking" with no real idea what they are talking about. It's a very negative attitude and just sucks the joy out of life. Always better to see the positive than concentrate on the negative.

I do sometimes think there should just be a permanent olympics site rather than rebuilding everything every 4 years. Maybe let the Germans do it. They'd be least likely to screw it up.

I thought the opening ceremony was innovative. I didn't enjoy all of it, but some parts were very appealing, the rubber bands with the butterflies and the parkour scene.

The Brazilian economy has shrunk massively since they were awarded the games and I think that can be clearly seen at some of the venues. But I think the organisers have been quite pragmatic and hopefully their approach will encourage future organisers to think of ways of capping their spend. The Games have become so bloated since the Austerity Games in 1948 - maybe this will mark a turning point.

And in a recent survey of Brazilians, 90% said they had no interest in their football team - they haven't been forgiven for losing, at home, to Germany in the 2014 World Cup.

There has been some truly exciting sport to watch and some exceptional results.

I think the number of empty seats is a shame but hardly surprising. Rio's infrastructure has been given a big boost, which will be the legacy rather than the stadiums.

The only tickets we could get for London were for the women's football early stages. We went and had a great time but it's not accurate to say that the London games were perfect.

You know, Rio always had a tough act to follow after China and the UK.

Its GOOD that somewhere that isn't the 'dominant' country in the world has been given a chance. It shows problem, but then is this necessarily a bad thing? Perhaps we should ponder 'why' more rather than merely criticise. Problems are not necessarily things to be ashamed of and instead should be put into proper context. You should not necessarily compare like for like.

Whilst I am proud of London 2012 and getting the accolade of the 'best games ever' at the end, I don't think its right to be arrogant about it. The problems we faced pale in comparison to those Rio face.

If I'm honest, I do think that if we were supposed to be holding the games in 2020 instead of 2012, I think we might have struggled far more for various reason as the world has changed somewhat for this country (and others) during the last four years.

The bottom line for me, is I am enjoying the games hugely. Yes, its not London, its not perfect but that doesn't mean its not good and not enjoying.

Ultimately what makes us as human beings is being unique and have personality is our imperfections and flaws - this is our beauty as much as perceived perfection. The Olympics is a celebration of humanity; and whilst its about achieving, the spirit of the games is also about cheering on the underdog and congratulating people who get personal bests and beat national records every bit as much as those who win the gold.

So OP, YABU.