Gold medalist Martin Fourcade and bronze medalist Jean Guillaume Beatrix, both of France, celebrate while silver medalist Ondrej Moravec of the Czech Republic lies on the ground in the finish area of the Biathlon Men's 12.5km Pursuit at the Laura Cross-country Ski & Biathlon Center.
Organizers of the Winter Olympics announced Friday that one million tickets have been sold for the games in Sochi so far.
With more than a week to go, Sochi’s sales figures are still lower than the 2010 games in Vancouver (1.5 million tickets were sold) but already higher than that of the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics (which sold less than 1 million).
Sochi had its most attended event thus far on Thursday, when 106,000 fans crammed into Olympic Park to watch the Russian hockey team beat Slovenia 5-2. There are, however, reports that many early games have been frustratingly low in attendance, and that officials have scrambled to get volunteers to fill this seats. But this isn’t exactly new. The London Olympics called in the army to fill empty seats, Quartz reports.
Russia spent a record $51 billion on the games, which is $11 billion more than China spent on the 2008 Summer Olympics.