Parents whose children are competing for Canada in swimming at the Beijing Games say they are having a tough time obtaining tickets to watch their offspring.
"We keep working at it," Lawrie Johns, father of B.C. Olympian Brian Johns, told Canada AM on Monday. "And we will keep working at it until swimming opens ... on Aug. 9."
Parents of Canadian swimmers are about 200 tickets short of what they need for the event, which is among the most popular spectator sporting events at the Olympics.
Johns said the parents had similar difficulties at the 2000 Games in Sydney, when his wife was forced to bid on eBay for tickets against another Canadian swim parent. But things went well for the 2004 Games in Athens, with every parent getting tickets.
For the Beijing games, they were originally told in 2007 that two tickets would be available per session for families, even though there are 17,000 tickets available on a per-session basis.
With 15 swimming sessions, that means more than a quarter-million tickets should be available.
Working with Swim Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee, "we were able to increase that amount to 15 to 20 per session," he said.
But there are 27 Canadian swimmers and 24 families going to Beijing, which leads to the shortfall.
Johns has organized an ad hoc group known as C-SPOT. They will arrange ticket trades so if one family's swimmer drops out and another's swimmer goes on, the successful swimmer's family will get the tickets.
Johns said they heard Friday the COC had located another 30 tickets.
He said parents are paying for their own tickets, and the tickets they are getting are 'C' tickets, "so make sure you bring your binoculars."
The ticket availability problem, however, affects swim families around the globe, with families in Europe and Australia telling him they are also having troubles obtaining tickets, Johns said.
"This is the biggest venue that's ever hosted swimming, yet it's the least tickets available for those of us trying to get those tickets," he said.
The U.S. traditionally pays for the tickets of its swimmers' families, yet even they can't get the tickets this year, he said.
