What a mess.
There were rows of empty seats at almost every event at the Rio Olympics, yet the mother of an Irish Olympian had to go to ridiculous lengths to purchase a ticket to see her son compete.
Finn Lynch represented Ireland in the men’s laser race, and the 20-year-old’s mother had to buy a ticket from a Norwegian website, because she was unable to secure a ticket that was meant to be reserved for friends and family of Irish competitors.
“I found it difficult even to figure out how to get tickets. I worked out that it was Pro10, I rang and rang and rang and every day, several times a day, you’d just get straight through as if to voicemail and then it would say that voicemail was full,” Grainne Adams told Newstalk.
“I did all sorts of things looking for tickets, including looking at sites selling above the odds. One had tickets for the opening ceremony for €1,200, but then the price began coming down, every day, but the lowest it ever came to was €600.”
“We went on a Norwegian website where people can sell tickets for anything and found a man who had booked through Norwegian official channels. He was selling two sets of seven tickets, which included two tickets to the opening ceremony, I bought them at face value.
“I had to buy six tickets that I wasn’t looking for, but I got to go to the opening ceremony and see Finn walk into the opening ceremony. Despite the opening ceremony tickets, the family and friends scheme was to give you two tickets to whatever event your child was performing in, but you had to buy the tickets yourself first and then claim the money back afterwards.
“So when I asked for tickets for the day Finn was sailing, they said no we don’t have any sailing tickets — so even the family and friends scheme didn’t have any tickets. And they only refunded official tickets and Pro10 didn’t have any sailing tickets.
“It was totally confusing trying to figure it out.”
