Three weeks ago, organisers and event fans were worried that the 2016 Paralympics would not be well-attended.
But when So Paulo resident Marco Fumis arrived at a lively Olympic Park on Saturday, he was blown away with what he saw.
"I'm positively surprised by this," said Fumis.
"We are really emotional people, and I think we realised how important it is for not only the Olympics but the Paralympics. A lot of us are here to better understand how these athletes do what they do, so we're here to support."
The fan support is significant.
The 170,000 tickets sold for events at Olympic Park on Saturday, surpassed the one-day total for some days at recent Olympics.
"It was a really, really cool environment because usually we have like five people in the stands and now we have an entire gym," US women's sitting volleyball player Heather Erickson said after her team swept Iran 3-0.
On Sunday, 46,000 tickets were sold at Olympic Stadium, the track and field venue separate from Olympic Park, according to the International Paralympic Committee.
"Everybody wanted to talk about 'What about London?"' IPC spokesman Craig Spence said, referring to the 2012 London Paralympics, for which a record 2.7 million tickets were sold. "But (Saturday) surpassed it for me."
A last-minute campaign that originated in Great Britain, called #FillTheSeats and supported by donors such as Coldplay, Prince Harry and US Paralympian Tatyana McFadden, boosted sales for tickets given to Brazilian children.
Brazilians can buy tickets for as low as 10 reais (about $A4) and pay for them on a four-month plan (2.5 reais per month), Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada said.
"We have a lot of things that are hard for us, the sports brings us feelings of hope," said Sofia Borges, a Rio 2016 volunteer and So Paulo native.
"It brings hope to families and kids, and it's also nice to see other sports than soccer."
Total ticket sales now sit at 1,863,000, the second-highest Paralympic Games total, behind London.
Spence admitted that the expectations were low but he said he's overjoyed at how well the games have come together.
"We've got full venues, the athletes are loving it and the performance levels are what we expected," Spence said. "We said coming in this would be the best Paralympic Games in terms of athletic performance and they're clearly proving so."
Indeed, coming into Sunday, 89 world records had been broken.
Share
