奥运士兵上班安保下班填空座_BEC初级作文

奥运士兵上班安保下班填空座

Despite featuring superstars including Kobe Bryant and being close to a sellout with the public, there were around 40 empty seats in the arena reserved for Olympic and sporting officials. "We're seat fillers," said one of 15 soldiers drafted on Sunday afternoon. "They asked who likes basketball and we put our hands up."

The London organizing committee (Locog) refused to rule out offering seats to G4S staff if the problem persists. The action came after the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said on Saturday the empty seats were "very disappointing" and Locog launched an investigation. Organizers indicated international sporting federations are the main cause of the problem in the accredited areas, and the International Olympic Committee has told them to deal with the issue.

Pictures of athletes competing against banks of empty seats were beamed around the world on the first day of competition but Lord Coe, the Locog chairman, was initially dismissive of the problem, saying on Sunday: "Those venues are stuffed to the gunnels."

He denied that having troops fill seats appeared shambolic. "If we have the army sitting there on rest periods we can ask them if they want to sit in there and watch it," he said. "We take it seriously. I don't want to see swathes of those seats empty."

Coe said he believed the problem would settle down, adding that it was a result of representatives of national Olympic committees, sporting federations and some sponsors taking time to "work out the shape of their day" and decide where to go.