Locked-out [left out] of the Olympics.?

Question

Were the sporting venues of the previous Olympics (Athens '04, Sydney '00, Atlanta '96, Barcelona '92, Seoul '88, L.A. '84) totally off-limits to the general public just like in Beijing? I've been here in Beijing since Aug. 3 but wasn't able to buy any tickets because they quickly sold out while there was no guarantee with scalper tickets ($250-$300 per sporting event) because they could easily be fake - & a lot of people did loose money with fake tickets. Hence, I didn't risk buying from scalpers. (The tickets originally costed only $40-$50 but they sold-out fast!)

Thus, the best one could do to get a feel of the Olympics was to get close to the venues (the eagle's nest, the water cube, & etc.) but the Chinese government totally blocked all the venues for a good 3-4 blocks! And so, you can only see the venues from a very far-away distance that you didn't feel the Olympic atmosphere at all, only those with tickets did.

Now you may say "what a looser," "what an idiot" (for not buying tickets way ahead of time) & etc., but Olympics tickets are so hot that they get sold-out fast, the scalpers makes it even worse! Hence, the only consolation for people like me was to atleast get close to the venues, take pix of the site, the Olympic flame, see the people with their respective flags, & etc. but all of this was denied even up to now that the Olympics is over! (The venues are still blocked though maybe for the paralympics.)

This then made me wonder if the venues of the previous Olympics were also totally blocked just as to how it was here in Beijing? I'm inclined to think NO or else, the people in the countries of those previous Olympics would've protested stating this is the free world, not communism or dictatorship whre there's lots of restrictions.

Answer 1

i think they were a little tight on security, because they don't want people to cause a raucous, get drunk etc. but you know china is a communist country so i bet those commies were really tight

Answer 2

YUR WEIRD

Answer 3

there were tickets around, many corporations were still getting tickets on the day itself. On some days, beach volleyball was going for RMB 200 at the gates.

the sites are still blocked 'cos of the paralympics, and traffic restrictions are still in place.

Answer 4

Idiotic post!

I scored plenty of tickets off Scalpers (4 in all) for no more than 200 Yuan above asking price. you just had to wait a few minutes after the events started.

outside the Water Cube and the BIRD's Nest with or without tickets you could view them from at least 50m away from the cube, and 60m from the Nest, hardly 3 or 4 blocks. I've found stricter security at stadiums in NZ.

Answer 5

I don't think it was like that. I think that beijing had to do this though because of all the protesters. Or it could just be because they are communist. I personally think that it is because of the protesters because of all the trouble over the olympic flame they didn't want to take any chances. But I think it is a bit over dramatic that they had all of that protection. Shame about the tickets though. You'd think that they would have a better way of distributing the tickets!!!