Sport 16-08-2004 The Greatest No-Show On Earth who: International Olympic Committee (IOC) what: Tells Olympic organisers to put bums on seats where: Athens, Greece when: At the weekend snippet: "The Olympics came home to Greece at the weekend but nobody was in," quips this morning`s Telegraph after a weekend of world-class sport was undertaken in front of almost empty arenas. "Three days into the 28th modern Olympiad, officials in Athens are under pressure from the International Olympic Committee to paper the city with free tickets if necessary to solve the growing crisis of low turn-outs." Preliminary rounds of the boxing took place with just a 10th of the seats in the 8,200 Peristeri arena occupied, notes The Guardian, "and fewer than 400 attended the table tennis at the 6,000-seat Galatsi Hall." Communications manager Michalis Zacharatos said that "we never hid the fact that less popular sports and opening rounds would not be full." But with Sydney`s virtually capacity crowds still fresh in the memory, The International Olympic Committee is "embarrassed by TV pictures of empty seats" and "wants the problem sorted", reckons The Mirror. Danish Olympic sailor Niklas Holm is in custody after a British tourist was knocked down and killed by a car in central Athens last night, The Times is reporting. And what of the sport itself? Team GB has had a less than successful start, with the weekend yielding just one medal: a silver for synchronised divers Peter Waterfield and Leon Taylor who, says The Guardian, "plummeted in near-perfect harmony to secure a silver medal from the 10-metre platform." Tim Henman is out, beated by Juri Novak; cycling world number one Nicole Cooke came in fifth after sliding at a corner on the final lap of the road race, while swimmer Sarah Price "cut her leg on a TV camera during her warm-up for the 100 metres backstroke semi-final. An appeal for the race to be postponed was rejected and she finished last." [... more]

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