Rio de Janeiro: Rio 2016 Games organisers on Tuesday unveiled ticket pricing aimed at making attendance “as affordable as possible”, with entry to the blue riband 100-metres final costing just half of what it did at London 2012.
Athletics fans wanting to see Usain Bolt target a third straight 100 and 200-metre golden double will pay a maximum 12,000 reais (Dh18,820, or $5,125) compared to the $1,160 best seats equivalent in London.
In all, some 7.5 million tickets will go on sale for the August 5-21 event and organisers said sports fans can buy roughly half — 3.8 million — for 70 Brazilian reais ($30) or less across 717 events in 28 sports.
There will be a maximum of five price categories: A for the most expensive to E for the cheapest, including for the opening ceremony at the Maracana, where the best seats will fetch a cool 4,600 reais ($1,964) but the cheapest only 200 reais ($85).
A top category opening ceremony ticket cost £2,012 ($3,264) for the 2012 Games in London, though the cheapest ones were ten times less.
Top category tickets for the football final in Rio will be 900 reais — but fans will only have to stump up 70 reais for category A access to women’s preliminary games and 100 for the men’s. Some of those matches will be played in other cities — Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Salvador and Sao Paulo.
Watching the beach volleyball on Rio’s iconic Copacabana Beach will start at 100 reais, rising to 1,200 for the final, while tickets to the men’s and women’s tennis trophy matches will fetch 700 reais.
For fans looking simply for a taste of the atmosphere at the first Games ever to be held in South America, there are bargains to be had.
Deep pockets will not be required for mountain biking, for example, with entry costing just 40 reais.
Tickets to the field hockey will cost just 60 reias for preliminaries, rising to 160 for the final.
Weightlifting will cost initially 60 reais, rising to 100 for the final, while wrestling will start at 70, going up to 2,010 for the finals.
Organisers posted the full price ranges to their website (www.rio2016.com) ahead of the unveiling of the full Games programme to be published in November along with ways for the public to register and buy tickets.
