More than 300,000 people in?China have become the first
group of lucky people who managed to get tickets for the 2008 Olympic Games as organizers released on
Friday the outcome of allocation for the first round of
booking.
The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee (BOCOG) said that a
total of 1,593,345 tickets would be allocated to over 300,000
people and that all the 26,000 tickets to the opening ceremony had
been sold out, with only one lucky winner for every 21
applications.
Basketball, diving, table tennis, football and gymnastics were
the top five high-demanding sports events and 34.6 percent of the
applicants would be allocated tickets for the sports events. For
the closing ceremony, 15.1 percent of the 172,219 applicants were
lucky to buy a ticket.
The first round of ticket sales started in mid April and ended
by June 30. During this period, the Beijing Olympic ticketing
center received more than 720,000 applications, requesting for 5.18
million tickets. Due to higher demand for some tickets, 72 percent
of the 2.2 million tickets available to the public during the first
phase were sold.
Rong Jun, head of the Olympic ticketing center, said that for
oversubscribed events, a random computerized selection process was
used to ensure the fairness of allocation.
"The process was totally transparent and fair," he said.
The second stage of the tickets selling will start from October
with the principal of "first come, first get". People can book
tickets through a hotline (952008), the official ticketing website
and Bank of China branches.
About seven million tickets are put on sale to the public for
the 2008 Games, with over 70 percent reserved for domestic sales.
Prices range from 30 yuan (US$3.97) to 5,000 yuan (US$660).
(Xinhua News Agency August 25, 2007)