Beach volleyball the hot ticket for MPs and civil servants

GOVERNMENT ministers and civil servants have got hold of twice as many tickets for the beach volleyball than for athletics events at the London Olympics, it has emerged thanks to a question put by an astute Labour MP, Gerry Sutcliffe.

But is it the skimpy tops and bikini bottoms that have attracted Westminster’s finest? Or is there a more innocent explanation - that the beach volleyball is being held at Horseguards Parade in Westminster, while the athletics means a schlep out to East London.
 
The issue emerged as MPs quizzed civil servants about the Games.
 
When the issue of tickets came up, Jonathan Stephens, permanent secretary of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, explained that the London Games' top sponsors were entitled to buy 13,500 tickets, but said that the Government had taken only 8,800.
 
Sutcliffe, MP for Bradford South, asked: "I don't know if this is an oddity or not - but can you explain why there seems to be a strong interest in beach volleyball among ministers and civil servants? The government have bought 410 beach volleyball tickets, costing £26,000, as against only 256 athletics tickets."
 
Stephens insisted that there was a straightforward explanation. He said that when the Government was purchasing tickets for staff it wanted to offer them events which were held on Fridays or at weekends and for which tickets were not overly expensive. Beach volleyball fitted the bill, he said. "As ever, on these occasions, the explanation is coincidence rather than conspiracy."
 
The Daily Mail thinks it knows the real reason for the sport's popularity. "Despite being a little-played sport in Britain, beach volleyball was one of the fastest events to sell out – a phenomenon partly attributed to the athletes' attire. Women players must wear a top 'closely fitted to the body' and briefs with 'a side width no greater than 3in'. Men can wear vests and shorts." ·