Richard Cashman, writing in The Australian, reflects on why there are so few spectators at the games in Athens. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Greeks are just not sport enthusiasts. "It is ironic that although Greece is the home of the Olympics, it does not have a strong culture of Olympic sport in more contemporary times."

"Although Sydney had less spectator capacity and a smaller aggregate of 6.7 million spectators, it set a benchmark for the proportion of tickets sold -- more than 90 per cent. This was an impressive take-up figure because it occurred across the board -- it included preliminaries and finals, popular and minor sports."