PARIS (AP) — After getting off to a rocky start last year, Olympics 2024 organizers said the Paris Games have broken the record for the most number of tickets sold or allocated in the event’s history. And yet, tickets are still available.

Organizers say 9.7 million tickets were sold or allocated for this year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games, with 8.7 million sold for the former and 1 million for the latter.

For Paris, a total of 10 million tickets were put on sale for the Olympics — meaning that despite the historic popularity of the sporting events and unprecedented scale of this year’s competitions, there will still be many empty seats remaining.

The total ticketing figure will, however, likely rise because tickets are still on sale for some of the 45 sports.

“There’s a real buzz in the city, and it’s the first Games I’ve been to,” said Carmen Rivera, 29, from Madrid. “I’m not surprised it’s the most popular one ever, as there has been the pandemic and other things that impacted the other recent ones.”

The previous ticket sales record was held by Atlanta in 1996, when 8.3 million tickets were sold.

Starting in April, around a million free tickets for the Games were handed out to local young people, amateur athletes, people with disabilities and others to broaden access to the Games, following criticism that exorbitant ticket costs were pricing out ordinary people.

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