Tight security not to blame for Olympic empty seats

Nearly 20 percent of the stadium seats at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games have been empty.

But that's not because organizers didn't manage to sell tickets...

(SOUNDBITE) (English) SOCHI 2014 VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNICATIONS, ALEKSANDRA KOSTERINA, SAYING:

"We had, if we talk about yesterday, we had pretty full stadia, 92 percent of tickets were sold, we might have lost around ten percent of people who actually showed up..."

They say it's because spectators are showing up too close to the start of the games.

That doesn't not give them enough time to go through stringent security checks to get in on time.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) SOCHI 2014 VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNICATIONS, ALEKSANDRA KOSTERINA, SAYING:

"Basically a Russian mentality in a lot of ways that Russians like to come to the event not prior, but as close as possible and that is why indeed we had an issue of a lot of spectators being late for the games."

Security has been tight here