Over one million ticket applications have been received for the men's 100 metres final at next year's London Olympics, organisers said on Friday.
While the London Organising Committee (LOCOG) are not giving a detailed breakdown of how many applications they have received for individual sessions at the two-week Games, a spokesman confirmed the 100m final had topped the million mark.
However, with around 50 percent of seats in the 80,000-seater stadium being taken up by sponsors, VIPs and media most people will be disappointed. The initial application process for the 6.6 million tickets available for the Games has now closed. LOCOG said they received 20 million applications from 1.8 million individuals, an average of 12 ticket requests per applicant.
Money is already being taken from bank accounts although exactly what tickets people have secured will not be known until June 24 -- a system that has attracted some criticism and was labelled "peculiar" by London Mayor Boris Johnson.
High demand
"We can't tell people what tickets they've got until we've charged their card. We need to make sure it's a fully paid for order before we inform people," head of ticketing Paul Williamson said in a statement this week. "The second reason is the sheer scale of this enterprise. More than 1.8 million applied and more than 20 million tickets were applied for. The sheer scale of it is why it takes time.
"If we told people the day after their credit card went through, we'd be telling people across three or four weeks. You might be told and your next door neighbour wouldn't."
{{/usCountry}}"If we told people the day after their credit card went through, we'd be telling people across three or four weeks. You might be told and your next door neighbour wouldn't."
{{/usCountry}}LOCOG are expected to raise a quarter of its two billion pounds operating budget from ticket sales.