英譯漢

　　For more than a year, many Londoners have complained about their inability to obtain Olympic tickets, especially for marquee events like swimming and gymnastics. Then on Saturday, the first full day of competition here revealed unsightly swaths of empty seats at marquee events like swimming and gymnastics.

　　How did that happen? Blame a mix of prime tickets that go unused by corporate sponsors, international sports federations and rights holders. Adding to the unfortunate visuals: Bored media stayed away in droves for preliminary competitions in some sports. This is a common Olympics phenomenon, especially early in the Games when medals aren't yet on the line.

　　As a result, patches of empty seats were visible Saturday morning at North Greenwich Arena, where men's gymnastics qualifying was under way. The same was true at the Aquatics Center, where superstar Michael Phelps swam in preliminary heats. At Wimbledon, Serena Williams played at a mostly crowded Centre Court stadium that was nonetheless blotched with sections of a couple of hundred empty seats each.

　　Fans aren't the only ones who were frustrated. On Saturday afternoon, Indian tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi tweeted: 'Been trying for 6 hours now to buy my wife a ticket to watch me play tomorrow. Still no luck, and the grounds here feel empty. ABSURD!!!'

　　At Sunday morning's Olympic press briefing, a British reporter brandished a digital photo of empty seats at a men's gymnastics event and asked London Games chair Sebastian Coe to identify the guilty absentees. Mr. Coe replied: 'I'm very happy to look at your holiday snaps later.'

　　Mr. Coe then expounded by saying that it was early in the Games, that empty seats weren't new to the Olympics and that, in fact, the venues were 'stuffed to the gullets.'

　　Mr. Coe asserted that empty seats were 'not going to be an issue through these Games' and said organizers were distributing spare tickets to the military, students and teachers. 'Those venues are humming,' he said.

　　By Sunday evening, the controversy yielded a parody Twitter account called 'the Empty Seat' (@olympicseat), in which the vacant chair laments: 'My grandfather was a seat in the 1948 Olympics. He made it sound so grand. I wanted to follow in his footsteps.'

　　A spokesman for Locog, as the London Olympics organizing committee is known, said Saturday: 'We are aware that some venues have empty seats this morning. We believe the empty seats are in accredited seating areas, and we are in the process of finding out who should have been in the seats and why they weren't there.'

　　Locog said it is working to find a way to quickly repurpose unused seats. By Sunday, military members and their families were being offered empty seats at events such as gymnastics.

　　Locog has a total inventory of about 8.8 million tickets for the Games, but only about 75% of them wind up on sale to the public. About 12% go to national Olympic committees, who then can sell to customers in their countries. About 8% go to sponsors, rights holders and others. The last 5% go to international federations, the International Olympic Committee and sellers of various travel packages.

　　In the U.K., the public sale process has faced many complaints. The London organizing committee offered Britons a chance to buy Olympic tickets through a complicated multistage lottery and set up a resale program to allow for the authorized resale of unwanted tickets.

　　The lottery yielded a torrent of complaints when many people complained about being completely shut out. Subsequent ticket releases were plagued by website problems. The resale program has pumped some unused tickets back into circulation, but it is lightly used.

　　Yet for all the complaints, some tickets are still available for events throughout the Games, especially at the higher price points. On Friday, the Locog website offered tickets to men's gymnastics, beach volleyball and other events. And almost to the last minute, tickets were still available to Friday's opening ceremony, though you would have needed an Olympian wallet to afford the £2,012 ($3,168) and £1,600 ducats that were still around.

　　參考譯文

　　一年多以來(lái)，許多倫敦市民都曾抱怨奧運(yùn)會(huì)比賽門(mén)票一票難求，尤其是游泳和體操等引人入勝的項(xiàng)目。然而上周六，奧運(yùn)會(huì)的第一個(gè)全天比賽日的游泳和體操等項(xiàng)目的比賽中，觀(guān)眾席上出現(xiàn)了成片的空座位，顯得非常刺眼。

　　這是怎么回事?要怪就只能怪企業(yè)贊助商、國(guó)際體育聯(lián)盟和持權(quán)轉(zhuǎn)播商沒(méi)有使用派發(fā)給他們的門(mén)票。讓空蕩蕩的景象顯得更為凄涼的是，大量媒體因?yàn)橛X(jué)得一些比賽無(wú)聊也不在賽場(chǎng)上露面。這是奧運(yùn)會(huì)上很常見(jiàn)的現(xiàn)象，尤其是在沒(méi)有獎(jiǎng)牌產(chǎn)生的比賽中。

　　于是周六上午在北格林尼治體育館(North Greenwich Arena)舉行的男子體操資格賽上，大片空座醒目地出現(xiàn)在觀(guān)眾席。超級(jí)明星菲爾普斯(Michael Phelps)參加預(yù)選賽的水上運(yùn)動(dòng)中心(Aquatics Center)也是如此。在溫布爾登，小威廉姆斯(Serena Williams)參加比賽的中心球場(chǎng)(Centre Court)仍然有幾百個(gè)空座，這個(gè)球場(chǎng)以往大多數(shù)時(shí)候都是爆滿(mǎn)的。

　　因賽場(chǎng)上的空座感到沮喪的并非只有體育迷們。周六下午，印度網(wǎng)球選手布帕蒂(Mahesh Bhupathi)發(fā)推特信息說(shuō)，為了幫我老婆買(mǎi)一張我明天比賽的門(mén)票，我已經(jīng)試了六個(gè)小時(shí)了，還是買(mǎi)不到，可觀(guān)眾席看起來(lái)卻這么空，太扯了!!!

　　上周日上午舉行的奧運(yùn)會(huì)新聞發(fā)布會(huì)上，英國(guó)記者展示了一張男子體操比賽上觀(guān)眾席空空如也的數(shù)碼照片，要求倫敦奧委會(huì)主席科(Sebastian Coe)查出這些缺席者�？苹貞�(yīng)說(shuō)，我很樂(lè)意待會(huì)兒再看你度假時(shí)拍的照片。

　　科隨后解釋說(shuō)，現(xiàn)在奧運(yùn)會(huì)剛剛開(kāi)始，奧運(yùn)會(huì)上出現(xiàn)空座位不是什么新鮮事;事實(shí)上，比賽場(chǎng)館的觀(guān)眾往往都爆滿(mǎn)。

　　科肯定地說(shuō)，觀(guān)眾席出現(xiàn)空座位的問(wèn)題不會(huì)在奧運(yùn)會(huì)期間一直存在。他說(shuō)，組織者正在把剩余的票發(fā)給軍人、學(xué)生和教師，那些場(chǎng)館肯定人滿(mǎn)為患。

　　周日晚間，上述爭(zhēng)議招致了推特(Twitter)一名用戶(hù)的揶揄。這位名為“空位子”的用戶(hù)寫(xiě)道，我的祖父是1948年倫敦奧運(yùn)會(huì)上的一個(gè)座位，他說(shuō)因?yàn)橛辛怂�那次奧運(yùn)會(huì)才如此偉大;我也想成為他那樣的位子。

　　倫敦奧組委的一名發(fā)言人上周六說(shuō)，我們意識(shí)到今天上午一些場(chǎng)館出現(xiàn)了空座位，我們認(rèn)為空座位都位于實(shí)名區(qū)，我們正在試圖查明哪些人沒(méi)有來(lái)以及他們沒(méi)來(lái)的原因。

　　倫敦奧組委說(shuō)，它正在努力尋找迅速把沒(méi)人的座位利用起來(lái)的方式。截至上周日，一些軍人和軍屬得到了體操等比賽的空座票。

　　此次倫敦奧組委共發(fā)出880萬(wàn)張門(mén)票，但只有大約75%的門(mén)票用于公開(kāi)出售，12%的門(mén)票給了各國(guó)奧委會(huì)，這些奧組委將其賣(mài)給本國(guó)觀(guān)眾。8%的票給了贊助商、持權(quán)轉(zhuǎn)播商等人，剩下的5%給了國(guó)際聯(lián)合會(huì)，國(guó)際奧委會(huì)(International Olympic Committee)以及為旅游團(tuán)組提供的套餐票。

　　英國(guó)的公開(kāi)發(fā)售程序曾引起很多抱怨。倫敦奧組委為英國(guó)人提供了通過(guò)復(fù)雜、多步搖號(hào)程序購(gòu)買(mǎi)奧運(yùn)門(mén)票的機(jī)會(huì)，并設(shè)立了一個(gè)轉(zhuǎn)賣(mài)計(jì)劃，使他們可以合法地轉(zhuǎn)售自己不想要的門(mén)票。

　　搖號(hào)招致很多不滿(mǎn)，許多人抱怨完全沒(méi)有機(jī)會(huì)搖到。后來(lái)門(mén)票的發(fā)售又遭遇了網(wǎng)站故障。轉(zhuǎn)售計(jì)劃可以讓一部分沒(méi)有用過(guò)的門(mén)票重新進(jìn)入流通，但沒(méi)有多少人利用這個(gè)計(jì)劃。

　　盡管有這些抱怨，各個(gè)項(xiàng)目都還有一些門(mén)票可售，特別是票價(jià)較高的項(xiàng)目。上周五，男子體操、沙灘排球等賽事的門(mén)票在倫敦奧組委的網(wǎng)站上有售。上周五的開(kāi)幕式門(mén)票到幾乎最后一分鐘都還有賣(mài)，不過(guò)你必須擁有奧林匹亞眾神一樣雄厚的財(cái)力，才買(mǎi)得起剩余的價(jià)格分別為2,012英鎊(合3,168美元)和1,600英鎊的入場(chǎng)券。