China - Olympic ticket sales resume after online stampede: organisers

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Sales of Olympic tickets resumed in China under a revised system on Monday almost six weeks after an online stampede of orders shut down the booking system, officials said.

"Everything is running smoothly," said Olympic media centre chief Li Zhanjun as sales belatedly got underway.

About 1.8 million tickets were supposed to be sold in the second phase of ticket sales to people living in China on a first-come, first-served basis via the Games ticketing website from October 30.

But eight million hits in the first hour crashed the computer and the process was abandoned in an embarrassing setback for Olympic organisers, who had otherwise won many plaudits for their Games preparations.

Organisers decided to resume sales on December 10 and to abandon the first-come, first served system in favour of the lottery approach used in the first phase of sales earlier in the year.

Under the lottery system, a random computer programme allocates seats for high-demand events.

These include the opening and closing ceremonies -- which were sold out in the first phase of bookings -- basketball, men's football, diving and table tennis.

Following the October sales fiasco, the head of the ticketing department of the Beijing organising committee lost his job and Olympic officials were forced to apologise to angry Chinese would-be Olympic fans.

In the first phase of bookings, 1.6 million tickets were sold without a hitch using the lottery system.

A third phase of sales will see the rest of the tickets snapped up on a real-time basis from next April.

Altogether seven million tickets are available for the Beijing Olympics, 75 percent in China and the rest abroad.

Overseas sales will be managed by individual national Olympic committees.