Swimming Blogs - Garrett McCaffrey

About 5 days before the Olympics started hundreds of local scalpers were thrown in jail. So all the Chinese scalpers who bought out tickets are scared to slang. Notice the empty seats in any of the coverage? Swimming is the toughest event to score tickets to, yet there're still empty sections during finals at the aqua cube.

The biggest problem with not having tickets is that you can't get within a half a mile of the Olympic facilities. We're talking 3 layers of security including full body search and ticket scan. I'm all for safety but there is something to be said for the Olympic atmosphere and spirit. Search me, send me through medal detectors, take away my liquids but let me be part of that Olympic spirit. That spirit is tough to come by unless you get tickets to the events. The Olympic Green (where the Bird's Nest and Aqua Cube are) is relatively empty inside.

Martin from flowrestling was in Athens and we've met tons of people who were in Sydney and those facilities had big monitors right outside the facilities where unticketed fans could watch the events and contribute to that Olympic atmosphere.

My hope is that the Chinese government will realize how bad it makes them look to have empty seats and loosen their grip a bit. Like it or not, scalpers serve a purpose.

Look, the last thing I want is to dwell on the negative but my goal is to let you guys know what's up around this event. I'm not sure the main stream media is aware of it, because they have their tickets. Don't get me wrong, I'm still having an amazing time.

I got my first taste of Olympic competition last night (this morning for the US). Men's volleyball is awesome. We sat with some Polish fans through the Bulgaria vs China match and then Poland vs Germany. Beers are only a dollar a piece at these events, so we bought the Polska fans a couple rounds and by the end of the night I was suffocating in the bosom of large Polish men as they hugged me in celebration. That's the Olympic spirit.

zai jian