The Indian fans gearing up to reach Brazil for the Rio Olympics in August can hope to have an enjoyable experience of procuring the tickets online for various events and planning their travel, stay etc. in a complete package, as the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has entrusted the task to a professional sports travel company.
Fanatic Sports, which has a website www.fanaticsports.in, offering all the packages including individual tickets for the Olympics, will be the Authorised Ticket Reseller (ATR) for India, for the Rio Games scheduled to be held from August 5 to 21.
Thanking the IOA as well as the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the founder of the sports travel company, Raghav Gupta, clarified that all athletes going to the Olympics will have two tickets per session of their events for their family and friends, on a priority basis, as per the IOC directive.
The president of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), N. Ramachandran, said that the IOA and the various national sports federations were also in the queue to get the tickets, and have conveyed their requirements to the agency.
Even though the exact number of tickets available for Indian fans was not divulged, and the assurance of a “decent number of tickets” was repeated, it was revealed that the tickets meant for each of the 206 countries could be re-allocated at some stage, and the whole process would be on till June.
In a press conference held to announce the Olympics tickets sale on Friday, the Ambassador of Brazil, Tovar de Silva Nunes, assured that visa would be done on “fastrack” for the fans going to Rio for the Olympics. He also said that the fans can enjoy the morning, afternoon and night life of Brazil.
There were two sample packages announced for the Olympics. The first offers tickets for the opening ceremony, swimming and gymnastics on the second day, archery and boxing on the third day, diving and tennis on the fourth day, apart from sight seeing. The total cost, including return economy flight tickets, official Olympic tickets, hotel accommodation on a twin sharing basis, will cost Rs.3,76,704 per person.
The bigger second package, offers tennis, archery, weightlifting, badminton, boxing, athletics, wrestling and closing ceremony, spread over 15 days for Rs.5,83,912.
Sushil hopes for good support
Olympic silver and bronze medallist Sushil Kumar and women’s hockey captain Ritu Rani were present during the announcement, and hoped that a lot of Indian fans would travel to Rio and cheer for India. “During the London Olympics, I felt like being at home, because of the number of Indian fans. I hope Rio will be the same”, said Sushil.
The former World Champion Sushil said that Narsingh Yadav had done a great job to clinch the Olympic quota for India, and he was ready to go through any formality in terms of trials etc. to ensure the choice of the best wrestler for Rio in his weight category. Sushil, who has not been competing for some time except for winning the gold in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, said that he would not worry about any injury when it came to fighting for that elusive Olympic gold for India.
On her part Ritu Rani said that the team would try to its best, as Indian women’s hockey would be competing in the Olympics after 36 years, and she hoped for a top-six finish.
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