Swimming fans hoping to watch the likes of Michael Phelps and Adam Peaty storm through the water of an Olympic pool have been left disappointed by enormous pillars in their line of sight.
Fans at the Olympics
Aquatics Stadium paid full-price tickets for a view so badly blocked
that many moved almost as often as the athletes to find better seats,
according to reports.
The organising committee for the stadium had been criticised by FINA,
the international governing body of swimming and water sports, for
allowing four extra pillars inside the building after a hasty re-design.
And now it has emerged that several fans paid the full-price for what they believed were normal tickets, rather than the half-price amount proposed by the committee, to sit behind columns with screens.
Fans Márcio Benfica and Janaina Ramos bought tickets for seats
positioned behind one of the columns at a cost of R$ 260 (£63) for each
ticket.
"We only found out when we got here. We came looking for our place,
and then we saw that we had this column in front," Mr Benfica told
Brazilian news site UOL.com.
"The vision is somewhat impaired in some trials, but gives us reason
to stretch a bit," added Ms Ramos, in reference to them craning their
necks.
The half-price seats, which have been shown in a video, were supposed
to cost R$130 (£31.50) for the finals and R$80 (£19.30) for the
preliminaries.
In some stands fans cannot see the starting block and in others the awards podium is hidden, a video taken for news site globo.com shows.
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