Shooting at the Olympics - Tickets

[Dangermouse]

On the way home last night I quickly scanned another Olympic tickets shambles story in the free newspaper, with the usual disdain that I have for the whole affair.

The story listed sports that had tickets still available by good chance of getting a ticket and then slim chance of getting a ticket, then in a third column, all sold out.

I had a look in the good chance column for shooting - nothing,
Then in the Slim chance column - still nothing, blooming typical I thought, they have not even listed shooting-
Then I glanced down the all sold out column and there it was - Tickets for shooting at the Olympics are all sold out!

Does this not tell us something about the popularity of shooting?
Unfortunately I could not tell if these were tickets bought by UK residents or by the whole world, but surely this is a good opportunity for positive PR by our shooting bodies?

And if I was to live in a complete dream world, would the popularity not give some weight for an argument to keep the venue after the games. I know that is not going to happen, the land is too valuable.

For once it is nice to see that our sport is doing well and is not the dirty sport that no one dares talk about.

DM


Edit,
Just had a thought that perhaps there was only ever a stupidly small number of tickets ever available and that is why they sold out...

[dodgyrog]

There is another option! The tickets are not being made available for the shooting events because a sell out could be embarrassing!

[Doz]

Just had a thought that perhaps there was only ever a stupidly small number of tickets ever available and that is why they sold out...

Nasty old cynic that I am, I suspect this is probably closest to the truth...

[Dave 101]

Another option is that the organisers didnt put that many seats in to watch the shooting so what is available has been a sell out , perhaps Lord Coe would care to comment , or maybe not .

Dave

[20series]

As I remember it the specifiation for the 50mtre small-bore ranges was 3000 spectator seats.

Alan

[Trident]

This has been discussed at length on the Stirton Forum (UK Smallbore), with expressions of surprise at the sell out, and very few tickets 'won' by members.

I hadn't thought of the split between uk/foreign ticket numbers - possibly the answer to the sell out/lack of perceived tickets for UK.

The rifle arena holds 2500, including media, coaches, etc etc, it's not clear how many seats there are for 'normal' spectators.

[Sim G]

All bought by importers, distributors and manufacturers for "corporate entertainment" it has been alledged.......