The Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee (BOCOG) reports that only 450,000 tickets for this summer’s Olympic Games have been successfully allocated, accounting for about a quarter of the tickets available for sale in the second phase.

More than 700,000 orders for 4.2 million tickets were received by BOCOG, but only 123,000 bookings were confirmed after a computerized random draw.

Though BOCOG didn’t give a reason why about 75% of the tickets remain unsold it is fairly obvious — and this is confirmed from the experience of every previous Olymic Games — that some popular events were extremely over-subscribed while the rest of the events were in lesser demand. For example, the number of people who want to go and watch the equestrian dressage contests is finite.

Rong Jun, deputy head of BOCOG’s ticketing center, said earlier that the demand was ‘extremely high but too centralized on several hot events’.

This should not have come as a surprise. It has always been thus.

A total of 1.8 million tickets to the sports events of the Aug. 8—24 Games were put on sale in December. More than 1.5 million tickets were allocated in the first stage of ticket sales last year.

Despite the computer problems which badly affected some initial sales the end result will be the same at these Olympics as every other Olympics. Some events will be easy to get to even close to the day. Others, for more popular events, will be sold be ticket scalpers on the black market.

In Australia, there are concerns about the shortage of tickets for the Olympics. The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) says it is in talks with organisers of the Beijing Games to secure more tickets for the families of competing athletes.

China has allocated 75%t of all tickets to itself, leaving the rest of the world to share the remaining quarter.

AOC spokesman Mike Tancred says the committee has made it a priority to allocate two tickets to each Australian athlete’s family for every event or session they are competing in.

He said, ‘I can’t say that no families will miss out, but we’ve absolutely made athletes’ families our priority because we understand how important it is to have that support in the stands for our athletes. We’re looking good at this stage. We just need those extra tickets in the preliminaries when the draw for the team sports is completed.’

Mike Tancred says the huge worldwide demand for tickets is making them difficult to obtain.
Source: East Day and ABC

The U.N. General Assembly has adopted the Olympic truce resolution for the 2008 Beijing Games. The resolution, a form of which has been passed before every Olympics since the early 1990s, calls upon the 182 U.N. member states to ‘observe and promote peace during and beyond’ next August’s Games.

In doing so it ignored the assorted protest groups. For example, the Free Tibet Campaign sent a letter to the British government highlighting ‘the glaring discrepancy between China’s appalling human rights record in China and Tibet and the Spirit of the Olympic Truce’.

Mark you, before the Australian Olympics, a similar letter was sent quite rightly bagging the Australian government for its treatment of the country’s aborigines.

Olympic chief Jacques Rogge, seen here, in a speech to the United Nations before the resolution was passed, reiterated his view that engaging with China by holding the sporting spectacle in Beijing would have long-term benefits for the whole world.

This seems to be the general view of the Olympic committee wherever the games are to be held. And it is worth noting that Australia seriously started to get its act together on ways of dealing with aborigines after the Olympic Games.

Jacques Rogge said, ‘In China, the Beijing 2008 Summer Games have already delivered important social, legislative and economic benefits. It is better to open a new door to China than to leave it closed at this point in its modern evolution.’

The Olympic truce concept goes back to Ancient Greece when warring parties were called on to lay down their arms while their athletes competed.

Top Beijing Games organizer Liu Qi, who is also head of the city’s Communist Party, brushed off any worries about protests or other disruptions in welcoming the U.N. resolution.

Liu Qi said, ‘Beijing 2008 is heartened by the overwhelming support and endorsement given to the Olympic truce by the international community at the United Nations.

‘Their solidarity reinforces the global desire for peace and a cessation of all acts of hostilities during the Olympic period.’
Source: Reuters

Now the nations are stepping into line and giving a reality check on attendance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Australian Sports Minister George Brandis said Australia would attend the Games.

He told parliament that in reference to the Falun Gong’s more outrageous claims about harvesting human remains: ‘The Australian government isn’t making a link between the two issues. There’s no issue about Australia’s participation in the Beijing Olympics being reconsidered.’

The minister said there were other ways for Australia to address human rights issues with China with out specifiying the methods.

Last month China last month overtook Japan as Australia’s number one trading partner, with two-way trade between the countries exceeding $40 billion dollars.

China outlawed Falun Gong in mid-1999. Since then the group, which claims to have more than 100 million followers worldwide, has campaigned from abroad against what they claim is brutal persecution of their followers in China. Anyone who tries to get a visa for China in any Australian city has to run the gauntless of Falun Gong activists. On the other hand, there is some evidence to suggest that the government of China has, perhaps, over-reacted to people who would normally be considered part of the Nutty Norah fringe who believe that qigong, a subset of tai chi, is the answer to all of the world’s ailments.
Source: AFP