SOCHI, December 10 (R-Sport) - About 25,000 people in total visited last weekend's Grand Prix figure skating finals in Sochi, the chief organizer of the 2014 Winter Games said Monday.
The competition, the first international test event for the Olympic Park, was hailed as a success with Japanese stars Mao Asada and Daisuke Takahashi taking home gold medals in their respective fields.
But one area of concern raised by Finnish skater Kiira Korpi was the sparse crowd at the 12,000-capacity Iceberg Skating Palace arena.
"The ticketing system passed its first test too, in total the Grand Prix Finals were visited by 25,000 people," said Dmitry Chernyshenko in comments relayed via the organizing committee.
Korpi had complained after her short program on Friday.
"Actually I was expecting a bit more audience because someone told me it would be sold out," she said. "Hopefully for the Olympics it will be more crowded."
The next test for the arena is the December 24-28 Russian national championships, which are expected to feature Olympic champion Evgeni Plushenko.
