Beijing - No Crowds or Rent-a-Crowd

The Chinese have been waiting a long time for the Olympics and I imagine that their patriotic displays on the roadside during the cycling could well have been natural. Even a few weeks ago, a lot of Chinese around the country (especially in Beijing) were wearing "I (heart) China" and "I love China and so do you" t-shirts.

Was the Cheer & Clap sign translated into Mandarin?

I watched a good portion of the women's road race on SBS and thought the crowd was enthusiastic (considering there was one Chinese rider and that the riders were clumped for much of the race). For much of the course, there were limited vantage points.

Might also be worth considering that most of the country would not have seen a cycling event before in their lives.

The dodgy part in that race, IMO, was when the solo Russian breakaway had to slow down for directions on which path to take when the road came to a fork - that should not be happening at that level!

There was a news article about Stuart O'grady's wife not being allowed to go near the road race course to watch he husband compete.

It said that she ended up watching it on TV somewhere. I would be well happy flying all that way to watch it on tv.

The same article also said that the riders were pissed that there was no one along the roads cheering them on, which in turn made the race even harder mentally as the were riding in silence.

Why would the Chinese want to watch people riding bicycles? They've moved on & embraced the automobile.

In all fairness this comes up at every olympics. I believe Sydney 200 had around 80% attendance which was quite a dramatic increase from past olympics. Athens was around 50% and China is sitting down at 30%.

At the end of the day the events are sold out and there isnt much that can be done about it to force people/corporates with tickets to actually attend.

As for the road race it was the same conditions for all riders, sure it was tougher but still the same for all.

People need to stop complaining, plan further ahead and be gratefull for what parts of events they do get to see.
Some of the family members sound like the expect to get priority to everything and be able to move along and see the whole race.

I remember seeing the road race at the commenwealth games in melbourne and it wound through the city, very spectator/pedestrain friendly course. This course in china is not. Pick a spot settle in and watch them go past.

Listening to the crowds in both the mens and womens road race I didn't hear much China specific cheering. The crowds were encouraging all participants and of course they were doing this in their own language.

If the leader of the bike race is spanish and I yell out 'keep going' does this mean I am supporting only the English speaking riders?

No, but the Spanish Rider may turn around and in his best Robert DeNiro voice say......

'Are you talking to me?'

Doubt they would notice specific comments, just the general atmosphere perhaps?

The point some are missing, especially 'dj', is that the family's of cyclists didn't expect to get preferential treatment, just equal treatment. It was the fact that they were completely excluded that is the problem.
As far as the ticket issue goes, china are only quoting "sellouts" to promote how good an effort they are doing, possibly an attempt to break the olympic record. This is completely against the spirit of the olympics and shows how little the chinese care about the rest of the world. The fact that they dare to have these "rent-a-crowds", who are chinese people dressed to support certain countries, is simply patronising towards the athletes and citizens of those countries. The crowds at the hockey didn't appear to know the rules, celebrating a non scoring goal on several occasions.

Hardly a crime to go along as a spectator but cheer at the wrong time because you don't quite know the rules. At least they're getting involved.

The main issue appears to be the over-secured road race - I'd assume that they were wary of an incident marring the event and the security was the same for some random, curious Chinese guy or the wife of a competitor. Only the other day there was a stabbing attack by a local against two Americans.

so if you were an athlete, you wouldn't care if the people in the crowd cheering for you were some random Chinese put there by the Chinese government instead of your best mates/family?

How many people are missing out on tickets? O'Grady's wife, because of security reasons? Any others?