BEIJING, Aug 15: Tourists looking for last-minute Olympic tickets were being sorely disappointed as the action shifted into top gear on Friday, with top events long sold out.

Chinese fans inside the stadiums were winning praise for supporting both sides, although there have been both cheers and jeers for athletes from Japan, which occupied parts of China from 1931 to 1945.

It is a far cry from Athens four years ago when organisers were desperately trying to sell tickets well into the Games and athletes were getting irritated by highly partisan Greek crowds.

“The crowd in China are definitely fairer, as opposed to the Greeks who were mean all the time,” Norwegian beach volleyballer Nila Haakedal said after losing to China’s top pair in a stadium that shook with all the screaming and singing.

The futuristic Water Cube has been stuffed to its 17,000 capacity as fans pack in to watch US swimmer Michael Phelps notch up gold after gold, while almost all the 91,000 seats in the Bird’s Nest Stadium were taken for the first day of athletics on Friday.

While in Athens as few as 200 people turned up to watch the badminton quarter-finals, the Beijing University of Technology gymnasium — capacity 7,500 — has been nearly full for the Asian-dominated sport. Basketball and boxing have also seen very few free seats.

Tourist Vincenzo Bruni, who comes from northern Italy, had been hoping to pick up tickets in Beijing for top events like swimming and athletics as he did in Athens in 2004.

“It’s impossible,” he said, having had to settle for a ticket to watch the judo.

Venues like softball, handball and cycling have been sparsely populated and several others are all but deserted as soon as it starts to rain or if it gets too hot or too late, despite organisers trying to get volunteers to keep stands full.

Many venues also empty in a matter of minutes as soon as Chinese competitors are done, leaving top teams to play in front of just a smattering of spectators.

Once Norway lost to China in the beach volleyball on Friday, the stands were left less than a third full for Australia-Greece.

“You know it’s going to be like that — it’s the same in a lot of places — but it would be nice if people sitting outside could come in and fill it up,” said Australia’s Tamsin Barnett, whose partner Natalie Cook could not get tickets for her family.

Some sports officials have also blamed empty seats and the lack of tickets on sponsors not turning up because fewer clients are accepting corporate hospitality this year. There is no official way to sell back block or individual tickets.

The Beijing organisers BOCOG have kept some tickets to sell each day via the official website, but most of those seem to disappear in a couple of hours leaving any other hopeful fans to try to haggle with ticket touts.—Reuters