2010 Winter Olympics: Organizers cancel 20,000 more standing-room tickets

CYPRESS — It's getting awfully tough for some sports fans to hold onto that Olympic Spirit in Vancouver.

Just a day after they cancelled about 8,000 tickets to the snowboard cross competitions on Monday, organizers announced the cancellation of 20,000 standing-room tickets for men's and women's snowboard half-pipe, men's and women's ski cross, and men's and women's snowboard parallel giant slalom.

Again, they cited warm weather, excessive rain and unsafe conditions.

"We are tremendously saddened to have to cancel the tickets of folks who probably went through the lottery system to get those tickets," said Renee Smith Valade, chief press officer for VANOC. "The last thing you want to do as an organizing committee is to cancel tickets, and we didn't take the decision lightly."

VANOC said they would refund original buyers the cost of their tickets. Many people, however, bought the tickets off a fan-to-fan Web site, Craig's List, or from ticket brokers for more than face value. At this point, they will not get any money back because they were not the original purchaser.

It has caused especially severe headaches for those who travelled to the Games from out of town.

Darell and Dori Koop, of Alberta, came to Vancouver with tickets to a hockey game and snowboard cross. After the announcement, they tried to get tickets to other events, but they said everything is sold out or too expensive.

"I guess we'll get our money back eventually," said Dori. "But now we're looking for something to do tomorrow."

It was also reported that a portion of the tickets cancelled belonged to family members of the athletes competing. Organizers were working on how to come up with the myriad of problems caused by the cancellations and weather delays.

e-mail: adonaldson@desnews.com