Olympic ticket sale in Beijing starts stampede

[July 25, 2008]  BEIJING (AP) -- Stampeding fans swarmed -- and in some cases scuffled -- in an attempt to reach sales windows Friday to get the final batch of tickets for next month's Olympics.

With thousands of fans lined up to buy tickets, some tussled at a site where officials opened additional sales windows, causing some to stampede ahead of others in a bid to buy some of the 250,000 tickets that went on sale throughout the city.

"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."

The official Xinhua News Agency said 30,000 people lined up for tickets and some became impatient because of the hot weather and long wait. Police limited access to some areas to maintain order, it said.

Some journalists were escorted away after going into the off-limit areas, Xinhua said.

Hong Kong Cable TV footage showed a policeman putting his arm around the neck of one of its reporter and pulling him to the ground. The reporter said he was assaulted after his crew refused to leave a media zone.

They were seen surrounded by dozens of police.

A Hong Kong Cable TV spokeswoman said it was "unacceptable" for Chinese authorities to treat the media that way. Shum Siu-wah said they hope China will honor its promise to allow full press freedom during the games.

Despite the problems, an Olympic official said the start of the sale went well.

"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," said Sun Weide, spokesman for Beijing's Olympic organizing committee.

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 tickets have been available for domestic and foreign sales. The games 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.

Xinhua 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 said.

[Associated Press; By HENRY SANDERSON]

Associated Press writer Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

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