Olympic ticket sale in Beijing starts stampede
(AP)
BEIJING---- Eager fans swarmed and in some cases scuffled as they lined up at sales windows Friday to get the final batch of tickets for next month's Olympics.
Scuffles broke out at one ticket site as officials opened additional sales windows, causing some fans to stampede ahead of others in a bid to buy some of the 250,000 tickets on sale.
''It was so unfair,'' said Ji Liqiang, who waited for 28 hours with Wang Zhenqiang, a fellow businessman from eastern Shandong province for a chance to buy tickets to the diving competition.
''Those who came late but were able to push forward got the tickets,'' he said.
The two lost their place in line in the scramble and instead of tickets to the diving -- where China is a gold-medal favorite -- they ended up with tickets to the synchronized swimming.
''It was very dangerous. I was afraid,'' Wang said. ''People got hurt around me. They fell and injured their knees and elbows. A barricade was bent out of shape by the crowd.''
Sun Weide, spokesman for Beijing's Olympic organizing committee, said ''There were so many people who wanted tickets so we decided to open more ticket windows ... In general, so far the ticket sale has gone smoothly.''
Xue Manjie, 19, and eight friends bought tickets after waiting since Thursday morning, but did not get ones for the basketball competition they wanted to see.
They settled for synchronized swimming and preliminary track and field events.
''We can't get the tickets for the games we want but at least we can have a look inside the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest,'' Xue said, referring to the swimming venue and the main athletics stadium.
Besides the tickets for Olympic events in Beijing, another 570,000 tickets are on sale for soccer matches in co-host cities: Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao.
All told 6.8 million Olympic tickets have been available for domestic and foreign sales. The Olympics start Aug. 8.
In November, organizers were embarrassed when the computer system crashed, forcing organizers to sack the Olympic ticketing chief and revert to a lottery system to sell tickets.
Organizers say they are taking precautions against fake tickets and black market scalping -- both common in China.
The official Xinhua News Agency said Thursday that Beijing police have detained 60 suspects for scalping Olympic Games tickets in the past two months, citing a police spokesman.
Those found selling tickets on the black market could face 10 to 15 days in detention, Xinhua.