The organizers of the Beijing Olympics said on Monday the second batch of tickets would be sold via a lottery, following the crash of the online booking system last week which forced the suspension of sales.

 

People will be able to submit their applications between December 10 and 30, said the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) in a statement, adding that an exact date will be specified later.

 

A total of 1.85 million tickets went on sale on Oct. 30 on a first-come-first-served basis through the ticketing website, a hotline and 1,000 designated bank branches.

 

However, the website crashed within hours as the number of requests was eight times more than what the website could process. Organizers fear the immediate resumption of tickets sales would yield the same result.

 

Those who booked their tickets via the hotline or at bank branches last Tuesday will get their tickets, said the statement.

 

Red-faced BOCOG organizers were forced to apologize to the public for the inconvenience last week.

 

Seven million tickets are available for the Games, with some 75 percent reserved for domestic sales. The first 1.6 million tickets were allocated after a lottery earlier this year. The third phase - from April to August next year - will release tickets on a first-come-first-served basis.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 6, 2007)