Paris 2024 kicked off with a record rugby sevens crowd on Wednesday despite more than one million Olympic tickets remaining unsold ahead of Friday's (July 26) Opening Ceremony.
A crowd of around 69,000 was in attendance at the Stade de France in what was the largest single day crowd in rugby sevens history.
SVNS league winners Argentina secured their places in today’s quarter-finals with a pair of opening day wins in the men’s tournament.
Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and double Olympic champions Fiji also advanced.
“We wanted to get the Games off to a spectacular start, but, wow, today was special,” said World Rugby chairman Sir Bill Beaumont.
“A single-day record crowd for rugby sevens, an incredible atmosphere, and of course, scintillating rugby. Sevens brought its A game, and the world was watching.”
The record numbers did not come without problem however as fans complained of problems entering the stadium in scenes dubbed “pathetic” by some of those trying to get in.
The issues were said to be caused by gates to the stadium only opening half an hour before the start of the first match.
One fan stated there was “no organisation”, “no staff” and “no organised line”, with the public figuring it out for themselves, a situation described as “pathetic”.
A Paris 2024 spokesperson played down the problems, saying: “All spectators were able to enter the stadium before the start of today’s 3.30pm Rugby Sevens session at the Stade de France. A certain level of queuing is to be expected when a venue is at full capacity, as was the case today.”
Sell-out crowds for other events could be unlikely with more than one million tickets remaining.
General admission tickets for the highly coveted 100m finals are still available on the official ticketing platform.
For the first time in Olympic history, all ticketing sales have been handled centrally by the Organising Committee instead of locally via National Olympic Committees.
Organisers claim that the approach has been a success as Paris 2024 has broken the record of 8.3 million tickets sold or allocated from Atlanta 1996.
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