The Sign Reads:
"MY SISTER IS COMPETING TODAY PLATFORM 10M DIVING AND WE DON'T HAVE TICKETS. WHO CAN GIVE US A TICKET?"
Every day at the Olympic Park, people loiter outside trying to buy Games tickets. They stand around Stratford station like they're homeless, holding little cardboard signs, or wander around the Park's outskirts wearing cheap tees with slogans scrawled in Sharpie pen — "NEED TICKETS PLEASE," "WILL PAY FOR PARK TICKETS, ANY SPORT."
It's sad, and it's also likely a waste of time. Police officers are stationed all around the Park, while security cameras and many Games volunteers look for illegal resales. More than 30 ticket scalpers have already been fined heavily — and some arrested — for re-selling tickets. (I've even been chastised by volunteers on a couple of occasions, simply for having my handy little London landmark-patterned reporter's notebook out. And I only doodle in it, anyway.) But that doesn't stop attendees trying all the same:
Fifteen year-old Carolina Mendoza Hernandez competes in the women's 10m platform diving preliminaries tonight, representing Mexico. Her family almost certainly won't get to see her efforts in person, because they spent the day outside unsuccessfully trying to get tickets — all too often being shunted along by store security guards who'd been told their presence tainted the pretty Olympic-themed window displays. They wore red, white, and green tees that spelled out her name, two letters per shirt. Her brother held a very sadface-worthy sign that reads:
"MY SISTER IS COMPETING TODAY PLATFORM 10M DIVING AND WE DON'T HAVE TICKETS. WHO CAN GIVE US A TICKET?"
I watched them for over an hour, and while lots of people stopped to take photos, no-one offered up a seat. And you know there'll have been (lots of) empty ones in the Aquatics Center all the same.