Turin organizers see ticket sales surge
(Northwest Indiana Times)
Updated: 2006-02-13 14:30

It's bragging time for Turin Olympics organizers.

The TOROC organizing committee said Sunday it has reached its ticket revenue target of $76 million after selling 766,000 of 1 million available tickets.

Sales picked up after Friday's opening ceremony and during the weekend the games' ticket Web site was frequently inaccessible due to high traffic. The last-minute surge followed weeks of media coverage of Italians' lackluster response to the games.

Although tickets remain available for every sport, locals are flocking even to events they aren't familiar with, TOROC spokesman Giuseppe Gattino said.

"We were a little concerned about female hockey. Last night with the Italian team ... the Palasport was full, so the passion lives here," Gattino said in a reference to the slogan for the Turin Olympics.

More than 8,000 people were undeterred by Italy's 16-0 loss to Canada on Saturday, chanting "I-tal-ia! I-tal-ia!" early in the game, cheering whenever the puck was cleared from the Italian end and breaking into the national anthem in the final minute.

Gattino said about 55,000 people attended the first day of competition Saturday, while Friday's opening ceremony broke the earnings record for a sports event in Italy, taking in nearly $16 million.

Blood conference: The president of Germany's Olympic committee, unhappy over a five-day suspension of one of his country's top cross-country skiers, wants to organize a medical conference to look into hemoglobin levels in competitors' blood.

Dr. Klaus Steinbach said his committee would set in motion plans for an international conference of leading hematologists.

The move follows the five-day suspension given Thursday to 2002 cross-country gold medalist Evi Sachenbacher after a blood test showed her hemoglobin to be above permitted levels. Her appeal was rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport and she was unable to start Sunday's pursuit event.

Elevated hemoglobin can be caused by simple dehydration or the body's acclimation to mountain air; it also can be an indicator of blood doping.

The German committee insists that Sachenbacher has naturally high hemoglobin levels and said it had asked for an exemption for her months ago.

Live ... on tape: Nine-year-old Eleonora Benetti's a capella rendition of the Italian national anthem at Friday's opening ceremony of the Turin Olympics was moving and heartfelt.

It was not, however, live.

Officials confirmed reports Sunday that Eleonora was lip-syncing when she sang an unusual unaccompanied version of the anthem in front of 35,000 at Olympic Stadium.

"She was recorded ahead of the ceremony," Giuseppe Gattino, spokesman for the TOROC organizing committee, told The Associated Press. "Such a young child, it's difficult to send her (live) in such an event."

Eleonora, a schoolgirl from the northern town of Forli, told Italian daily Corriere della Sera she wasn't scared when she performed. "It wasn't difficult, I was singing in playback, I just had to move my lips in sync," she said.

The hardest part, she told the paper, was keeping the secret: "I couldn't tell anybody that I was singing at the ceremony, even my best friend Simona. It was an Olympic secret."

The national anthem is known to Italians as "L'Inno di Mameli" n"Mameli's Anthem." It was written in 1847 by poet and patriot Goffredo Mameli and its ardent lyrics are usually accompanied with pomp and fanfare by a full orchestra.

Hackl's next ride: German Georg Hackl is replacing his luge with a wok.

The five-time Olympic medalist, who finished seventh Sunday in his final run, said he wants to take a break, drink some beer at his local bowling alley and defend his title in wok racing.

"You know the world championships in Chinese wok sliding?" Hackl said. "Every year there is a wok sliding championship. I am two-time world champion."

Designed by German entertainer and comedian Stefan Raab, the event puts sliders on modified woks that traverse a bobsled track. Raab won the inaugural World Wok Racing Championships in November 2003, then lost the next two to Hackl, who goes for a three-peat in Innsbruck next month.

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