London 2012: Olympics venues 'stuffed to gunnels' - Lord Coe
(40 minutes later)
Two Olympic champions are hoping to win Team GB's first medal of the 2012 Games, as organisers investigate why some venues have had empty seats.
Olympics venues are "stuffed to the gunnels" with sports fans, London 2012 chairman Lord Coe has insisted amid a row over empty seats.
Nicole Cooke will compete in the women's road race - the event in which she won Team GB's first gold in 2008.
He spoke after hundreds of seats were left unfilled on Saturday and Sunday morning at events including swimming, rowing, tennis and basketball.
And in the Aquatics Centre - a venue where hundreds of unused seats were seen on Saturday - Rebecca Adlington will defend her 400m freestyle title.
At some venues, tickets in "Olympic family" ticket areas - often with the best views - have remained unfilled.
Games chief Jacques Rogge says bosses are "getting to grips" with the issue.
Meanwhile, GB swimmer Rebecca Adlington has won her first 400m freestyle heat.
Empty seats were also seen at Wimbledon, the Basketball Arena, the volleyball at Earl's Court and the gymnastics at the O2.
She is now due to swim in the final at 20:18 BST.
While areas of seating where tickets have been sold to the public appear to be packed, at some venues "Olympic family" areas - often with the best views - have been emptier.
Lord Coe spoke out as the row mounted over unfilled seats in several Olympic venues - mostly in the "accredited" areas sections.
Mark Adams, the spokesman for International Olympic Committee chairman Jacques Rogge, said: "You have to allow for a small area of tickets - and it is a small area of tickets and doesn't happen at all venues.
The seats are reserved for the "Olympic Family" - a term used to describe groups including officials, sports federations, athletes and their families, journalists and sponsors.
"The sport needs some tickets - the federation needs those for their officials to be in there. We give tickets to the athletes and their families, and journalists, as well, need some tickets."
Empty seats "in the very earliest phases" of the Olympics were part of "the nature of that accredited area", Lord Coe told a press conference.
"They need some flexibility and, unfortunately, that leads, sometimes, to those areas and those seats being empty but we are really getting to grips with this."
"[The ticket-holders] are trying to figure out how they're going to divide their time, what their responsibilities are, and how and when they get dragged to any number of venues," he said.
Extra ticket
"I don't think you will be seeing this as an issue, long-term through the Games."
Tickets are also given to sponsors, including Visa which, on Sunday, said it had made "great efforts" to use its full ticket allocation, the majority of which, it said, had been given to competition winners.
Lord Coe added organisers would fill some of the empty seats with servicemen and women, as well as local students and teachers.
And British Airways said most of its tickets were given away "many months ago" to members of the public or members of staff.
And they would sell more tickets - as they did with about 1,000 tickets on the London 2012 website on Saturday night.
American Paul Fondie, who now lives in Kew, Richmond, said he was frustrated by the number of empty seats at the men's gymnastics at the O2 on Saturday.
He said he and his wife had not been able to take their six-year-old son because they could not get an extra ticket.
"It tainted my experience of the Olympics - it was our moment to come under the microscope and show that London can do it well."
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt told BBC News that organisers were looking "very urgently" at the problem and that, if those groups were "not going to turn up, we want those tickets to be available for members of the public because that creates the best atmosphere".
He said a Wimbledon-style system - where people leaving the stadium handed tickets back so their seats could be reused - had been introduced for the Games.
BBC correspondent Andy Swiss says ticketing is a sensitive issue after many fans missed out and the empty seats are a problem Locog will be anxious to solve.
Meanwhile, Mansfield-born Adlington begins her defence of the two gold medals she won in Beijing four years ago with heats for the 400m freestyle on Sunday morning - starting at 11:23 BST - ahead of the final in the evening.
Her battle to hold on to her 800m freestyle title will begin with heats on Thursday morning before Friday night's final.
A huge puppet version of Lady Godiva begins its journey from Coventry to London on a purpose-built 50-seater bike as part of the cultural celebrations for the Olympics
