OLYMPICS / Olympic Life

Beijingers brave heat to bag tickets
By Wang Bo and Lan Tian

Updated: 2008-07-26 08:34

 

As of 8 pm Friday, more than 140,000 tickets had been sold at 19 ticket offices in Beijing, 14 of which had completely sold out. All tickets for the most popular events, including gymnastics, diving, volleyball and football (at the Bird's Nest), had sold out, BOCOG said on its site.

Among the crowds at Wukesong was 21-year-old Li Teng and his four classmates, who had driven to Beijing from Hebei and queued for more than a day for the chance to get tickets to see their hero Yao Ming.

"I knew it would be hard to get a ticket to see Yao, but at least I got two tickets for the Aug 16 game between Greece and Iran," Li said.

Two of the happiest people in the crowd near the Bird's Nest were Zhu Guangyuan and his friend who managed to secure two tickets for the men's 110m-hurdles final and two for the women's 400m final.

The pair arrived at the ticket office on Thursday afternoon after a two-hour bus ride from Tangshan, Hebei province.

"I was almost choking in the huge crowds. It was like being in a sauna," 25-year-old Zhu, whose T-shirt was soaked in sweat, said.

"I actually set out to buy tickets for the diving finals, but I'm satisfied with what I have," he said.

Beijinger Zhang Zude was not so pleased, after finding out the tickets he planned to buy over the weekend had all been sold on Friday.

"I came here to queue for tomorrow's (Saturday's) tickets for the Bird's Nest, but I have been told they were all sold today," he said.

"How can they change the schedule randomly?"

Meanwhile, authorities have said they will continue to take a hard line on ticket scalpers.

On Thursday, the Beijing police bureau said 60 people have been arrested over the past two months for profiteering from Olympic tickets.

They are accused of reselling tickets at up to 100 times their face value, the bureau said.

A man surnamed Zhao was arrested in Beijing's Xuanwu district for trying to sell a 50-yuan ticket for a basketball match for 5,000 yuan, it said.

Anyone caught scalping tickets will face a detention of up to 15 days, the bureau said.

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