Jet Set ponies up short track tickets for Celskis

A lot of people read the piece in our four-part series about Olympic ticketing that detailed the struggle athletes' families often have obtaining tickets. But one of them took matters into her own hands.

After seeing a piece in The Times about short-track speedskater J.R. Celski's parents' search for tickets for his brothers to watch J.R. compete, a reader contacted CoSport/Jet Set Sports, the sole U.S. ticket distributor, on their behalf.

She recently received a reply from company president Mark Lewis, who said he's set aside two comp family tickets for the short-track session on Feb. 26th. We passed that along to Sue Celski, J.R.'s mom, who was ecstatic. Quoting now: "WOW! and WOW!"

The happy mom will be contacting the company to pick up the tickets.

Nice gesture by Jet Set. But it points to a larger problem referenced in that series: The U.S. Olympic Committee does a woeful job helping families get to see their children or siblings compete at the Olympics.

In general, the USOC strives to provide athletes with two family tickets to every event in which they are competing. Those two tickets usually -- although not always -- are provided, for free. But even when they are, additional family members are left to face scalpers and other unsavory means of getting in the doors. Often, those additional family members have sacrificed greatly to get the athlete to the Games in the first place.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that many athletes aren't officially named to Olympic teams until just before the Games. The USOC, in fact, just officially named its team today.

Lewis told us during the reporting for the ticket series that his company deals with many national Olymipc committees worldwide, and that the U.S. is the exception, not the rule, in how it deals with athlete's families. Many other nations require Jet Set to set aside additional tickets for family members to purchase at the going rate, he said.

The USOC should do the same. It's a simple line in the next contract with its ticket vendor, whether it's Jet Set or someone else. Trust us: With the amount of money on the table with exclusive Olympic ticketing contracts, no vendor is going to balk at that requirement.

Other countries have managed to do it other ways: In Canada, major Games sponsor PetroCanada stepped up to the plate to provide tickets and assist with lodging for athlete's families.

It's one part of the Olympic experience where the U.S. lags woefully behind. Maybe new CEO Scott Blackmun will get it fixed. No time like the present.