Is the Commonwealth Stadium half-full or half-empty?

It probably depends who you talk to.

Organisers say they are delighted with the turnout so far, which saw 36,189 through the gates on Sunday for the men's 100m final and not far short of that for the women's 100m on Monday.

But, to many television viewers around the world, the stadium looks surprisingly empty, even when Maurice Greene was on the blocks with a potential world record in his sights.

"What we've been talking about is that our revenue goal for ticket sales is $12.5m, and we are around $11.4m at the moment," he said. "So we're real close."

Touts - or scalpers, to use the local term - would disagree.

Amongst the smiling faces of the volunteers who greet visitors stepping off trains and buses by the stadium are several glum-looking entrepreneurs who exhibit all the joi de vivre of a dot.com investor.

"It's been bad, real bad," said one. "Everyone knows you can walk up to the ticket booth at the stadium and buy tickets at face value.

"For a football game I'd make a hell of a lot more."

"We knew that there would be tickets available every day and we made no bones about that," he said.

"There are excellent seats available and there will be for the rest of the week. What we're saying is, come down and have a look."

To an educated European audience, it seems strange that the opening ceremony could be a total sell-out but a day with the women's 100m, men's triple-jump, women's pole vault and the decathlon falls 10,000 short of capacity.

But the Canadian crowd view things differently. In-depth knowledge of athletics is in short supply, while patriotism is rampant.

Patriotic crowd

When a Canadian marathon runner sprinted the final lap to finish 42nd rather than 41st, the stadium was in uproar.

When Maurice Greene ran one the greatest 100m in history, there was plenty of warm applause but no standing ovation.

"For the people sitting in the stands here, I equate it to people in the USA who had never been exposed to ice hockey before they got an NHL franchise," said Kilburn.

"People in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is where the Carolina Hurricanes play, didn't know what icing meant, or offside, or what a penalty shot meant.

"They had an announcer there, just like we do here, explaining what's going on - who the athlete is, how famous they are, what they're trying to do.

"We have a very strong feeling that attendances will continue to be strong for the rest of the Championships."