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From the Olympics Toword Tomorrow

Shinano Mainichi

Man trades free pass to Olympic games for cash

Organizers of the Nagano Winter Games have distributed 30,000 complimentary passes to the army of Olympic volunteers, and at least one of the passes has since been sold for cash.

One complimentary pass for the crowd-pulling freestyle skiing event was sold to a discount ticket store in Nagano, which marked up the price to 12,000 yen. The store manager did not disclose how much he paid for the ticket.

''It was brought in by a middle-aged man,'' the manager said, adding that no questions were asked because it was ''purely a business transaction.''

An official of the Nagano Olympic organizing committee (NAOC) called the incident ''sad and regrettable.''

As a thank-you gesture to the volunteers working for the Games, NAOC issued 30,000 free passes, each good for one specified event, including Alpine skiing, Nordic combined, freestyle skiing and other outdoor competitions.

(Kyodo News)

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Copyright 1998 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun