More than 100,000 Sydney Olympic tickets have been sold in two days and it is expected that sales would continue at the same level. People have lined up at box offices and jammed the ticket hotline, prompting Games’ organizers to ask the public to be more patient.
Sydney Olympic officials were forced to find an extra 600 beds for athletes who have qualified for the Sydney Games. IOC member Jacques Rogge said the official estimate of 10,400 athletes had been wrong. It seems more athletes from the developing countries met qualifying standards than originally anticipated.
Bullet-proof vests and gun holsters were confiscated by Australian Customs officials from security agents accompanying the Israeli Olympic team. The goods were imported contrary to Customs Prohibited import regulations. Bullet-proof vests are banned under federal law in Australia.
Beth Jewell, policy coordinator of the Redfern Legal Centre in Sydney, said Sydney’s homeless were being harrassed, moved on and in some cases subjected to violence in the lead-up to the Olympics. Jewell claimed there had been street sweeps in areas frequented by the homeless, while park benches, a bed for some, had sprouted arm rests. There are about 20,000 homeless peole in metropolitan Sydney. Around 5,000 sleep rough on any one night with the numbers boosted in recent weeks by people flooding in for Olympic-related work, the centre said.
Athletes arriving for the Sydney Olympics have been warned by health officials to get vaccine for a flu virus threatening millions. The flu has already claimed at least two lives. Visitors over 65 or with a history of respiratory illness visiting Sydney should get a vaccination said a senior Health Department epidemiologist. The Sydey Organising Committee has offered vaccinations to all athletes.
There may still be time to work out a solution so that athletes from North and South Korea could march together during the Sydney Games’ opening ceremony. Juan Antonio Samaranch said Wednesday he was “not very optimistic” the joint march would take place because while the South Koreans supported the plan, the North Koreans have not responded. It seems the North Koreans were concerned their team, numbering around 50 athletes, would be barely noticed among the 400-strong South Korean team.
Organizers of the Sydney Olympics have been ordered to adapt their Web site to make it accessible to the visually impaired, after Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission ruled that the Web site breached the country’s Disability Discrimination Act, following a complaint from visually impaired Bruce Maguire. SOCOG must now add “ALT” text to all images and image map links on the site, to provide access for the visually impaired to schedules and results tables. Without the descriptive text, which must be added by the start of the Games, the visually impaired using adapted PCs able to read text by voice are prevented from moving between pages on the site, as they cannot identify images.
