Lob & Kritik » Despite organizers insistence that most tickets were

WASHINGTON -- The chief organizer of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics says security is his top concern, well ahead of the Zika virus.Sidney Levy, CEO of the Rio Organizing Committee, said Tuesday that keeping athletes and visitors safe from terrorism and other crime is his No. 1 top priority. He called the biggest fear lone wolf attackers.Differently from Zika, securitys at the top of my list -- the very top of my list, Levy said at a Council of the Americas event. We should never forget that these days we live in a society thats very in danger.The plan is to have 85,000 security personnel on the streets. Levy said the 2013 visit of Pope Francis and the 2014 World Cup were tests for Brazil.Francisco Dornelles, Rios acting governor, warned on Monday that budget shortfalls could compromise security and transit at the games. Levy said intelligence officials from 100 different countries are in Brazil monitoring potential threats.Zika, a virus linked to birth defects, has drawn widespread international concern. Levy stressed he does not worry about the virus and said none of the people working for him has contracted Zika. He pointed to expected cooler temperatures during the Olympics in his attempt to assuage fears.If I have to write on a piece of paper my top 10 worries today, Zika wouldnt be there, he said. Im not saying its not a public health issue. It is a public health issue. But we are going into the winter months in Rio and if you see every statistic of last years mosquitos proliferation in the summer and in the winter, it goes very high up in February and reaches the peak, which is the height of the summer. It starts going down, down, down. Right now its almost zero.Levy said Rio organizers did not expect this level of concern over Zika, and he acknowledged that more people around the world are worried about it than Brazilians are. Several high-profile athletes cited it as their reason for withdrawing from the Olympics.We thought that there were too many people here in the States talking about Zika and this is too much. This is too much. Too many negative comments, Levy said. I think it was good for them to hear other voices.Levy was less optimistic about water pollution, saying Rio failed on its promise to clean 80 percent of it by the Olympics, which are set for Aug. 5-21. He said four of the five sites on the Guanabara Bay are tested daily for bacteria and will not pose any problems and left open the possibility of moving the other.The fifth area is closer to the shore and were testing that and depending on the rain and the wind sometimes good, sometimes not so good, Levy said. If closer to the games we see that this is not good enough, were going to change the location to further down the sea. Were very committed to not put at risk any athlete during the competition.The Associated Press has reported that Guanabara Bay has shown astronomically high level of viruses for which the state is not testing.Another issue is the political turmoil in the country. Levy is unsure about the upcoming vote to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, which likely will take place in August.We do pray for the impeachment vote to happen before the games, Levy said. If that prayer is not answered, we hope that (will) happen after the games. We asked the president personally about that, but he cant control his congress and senate. Were going to have to manage whatever happens. It would be ideal of that to happen before the Olympics.Levy said the subway is almost ready and that the light rail is having its soft opening. Because those modes of transportation are new and Brazil has never hosted an event of this magnitude.Security is, of course, part of the core of the agenda, Levy said. But I would say today the main issue for me is the combination of all that: How to make all that work simultaneously on the very first day. .... First day everybodys watching. Its going to have to work. Thats what worries me. Ray Ban Cyber Monday 2019 . Catch all the action on TSN2 at 11pm et/8pm pt. The nine-time Big 12 champion Jayhawks are positioning themselves for another title, as they have run out to a flawless 6-0 mark in conference play thus far. Cheap Ray Ban Online . It was hard for Luck to pull off another comeback, or even get into the end zone, while standing on the sideline. 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Bernier stopped 42 of 43 shots on Monday night, including all 22 in a hectic middle frame, his heroic performance propelling the Leafs toward an undue point in their final game before the Christmas break. RIO DE JANEIRO -- The taekwondo competition at the Rio Games on Thursday morning was sold out. Not a single seat was left for grabs at the 10,000-capacity arena, where fans spent between $21 and $43 to gain access.But the arena never totally filled.The crowds, or lack thereof, will unquestionably be part of the legacy of these first Olympics in South America, where some events were raucous and others seemed downright sleepy. Despite organizers insistence that most tickets were sold, it wasnt uncommon to see Usain Bolt running in a stadium that had perhaps more empty blue chairs than fans -- even after he took to Twitter with a video urging people to buy tickets.Make sure you buy tickets and come out and watch, Bolt said. Its going to be great.Bolt has more than 4 million Twitter followers. Most of them, apparently, werent listening.When U.S. 1,500-meter runner Jenny Simpson won bronze earlier this week, the track stadium was maybe 25 percent filled. She noticed but insisted it didnt take away from her moment.The physical crowd that is there never compares to the people that you took along the journey with you, and theyre watching through their television screens and certainly now the internet, Simpson said. So the physical presence doesnt excite or deter.Rio Games officials insist that more than 80 percent of all available tickets were sold and that their goals on that front will be met. But that stat hasnt passed the eye test throughout the Games, and an Associated Press review of the remaining 100 event sessions starting Thursday afternoon showed roughly half -- including the closing ceremony, the womens soccer gold-medal match and all remaining sessions in track and field -- had tickets remaining.I got tickets for wrestling because they were the lowest price, said Luiz Hernandez, a Colombian who was with friends inside Olympic Park this week. We got them to come in here and hang out. We wound up giving them away because we just wanted to be in here.Hernandez said he paid 160 Brazilian real for four wrestling tickets, or about $49. His girlfriend, he said, spent at least 10 times that much in the Olympic Megastore --which, without those tickets, their group would not have been able to access.In other words, they spent a little money so they could spend a lot of money. And they waited an hour in line just to get in the crammed store inside Olympic Park, where crowds have been sizable throughout the Games. (Throughout Brazil, there are morre than 100 other stores, all smaller than the one in Olympic Park, selling Games souvenirs and open to the public.dddddddddddd)Shes happy, Hernandez said.Theres been no shortage of theories -- or excuses, depending on perspective -- about the empty seats in Rio. Some events start too early; others start too late. Some tickets were too expensive. Too many sports seemed foreign to Brazilians. Blocks of seats ordinarily set aside for international fans either werent sold or claimed. Traffic scared away locals. Would-be visitors were scared away by pre-Olympic stories of disease, dirty water and crime.Theyre probably all valid factors, on some level.Combine that with how Rio organizers say 11 percent of the advance-purchased tickets -- and 55 percent of the tickets given out for free to needy kids in the Rio area -- werent used, and its easy to see how the crowds became an issue.I dont want to go too long into this because it might sound as an excuse, Rio Games spokesman Mario Andrada said. I believe we faced this issue without looking for excuses but rather looking for explanations.But Andrada said the Games broke the financial target for sales even while the attendance numbers lagged, something he attributed to high-priced tickets getting sold early to marquee events.Numbers mislead, Andrada said.The cheapest available ticket to track and field Thursday morning was about $31, the most expensive about $109 -- and for the night session, with Bolt set to try for a third straight gold in the 200-meter dash, the top price was nearly $300. For diving, the prices ranged from $75 on the low end for the morning session, $281 on the high end for the afternoon session. Plenty of those seats were available.But for volleyball, a sport wildly popular among Brazilians, tickets were gone even with a steep price. The best seats for the mens beach final Thursday night were all sold at $375 each.The mens gold-medal soccer match at Maracana had a top ticket value of around $300; that was also sold out, organizers said. But the closing ceremony might have empty seats -- the two cheapest levels of tickets ($62, $187) have all been sold, but the three most expensive tiers ($437, $655 and $936) all were available.Officials steadfastly insist empty seats wont hurt Rios legacy.We cannot regret something, Andrada said, that we cannot fix. ' ' '