YOG - Tickets sold out, but seats empty?

As all of us know, Singapore is now hosting the first ever Youth Olympic Games. However, surely we would have noticed that the yog venues are always half-empty when we watch the games on television? And this is despite the fact that the Singapore YOG Organizing Committee had recently announced the majority of the tickets have been sold out.

It turns out that the MOE had bought tickets from the market and distributed them to students who were 'willing' to go. In fact, some students had been coerced by their schools to attend the games and generate 'support' for it. However, some of these students leaves the games early after having their attendance taken - resulting in the half-filled stadiums we see everyday.

I find the organizing committee's actions deplorable. Though I am not too sure about what really happened, I feel that even if there was poor response to ticket sales, they should just continue selling them to the public, instead of using such methods to generate fake support. The tickets should be left for those who really want to watch the games and cheer Singapore on. On the other hand, the students should not be made to attend the games against their wishes. I hope that they could rectify this problem as soon as possible.

However, no matter what happens, i believe that it is a great achievement for a small country like Singapore to host such a world-class event and it has been very entertaining so far. Just as i was writing this post, i realised that Singapore had just won another medal. I think we have done very well in this event and hope that Singapore could keep it up:)