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LONDON (Reuters) - London mayor Boris Johnson said on Wednesday he would keep trying to buy tickets for the 2012 Olympics after falling foul of the public purchasing system which he described last month as an oddity.
Speaking at an event to mark the completion of the Olympic "gateway" station at Stratford, east London, Johnson said he would try by "hook or by crook" to get tickets for his family.
"I was proud to be British today because I thought there must be no other country, no other society in the world where you can have the mayor of the host city participating in a ballot to get tickets for his family and get rejected," he said.
Johnson would not say how many tickets he had applied for, other than it was several, adding he was "cheesed off" at his failure.
"I will try again, and I'm sure...the 250,000 people will as well."
More than half of the 650 sessions were oversubscribed and went to ballot, with the showcase opening and closing ceremonies among the events declared sold out.
About 1.8 million people in Britain and the European Union made bids for 20 million tickets during a six-week window, with only 6.6 million on offer.
Successful applicants should have had money drawn from their bank accounts by midnight May 31, although they will not be told which tickets they have secured until June 24.
Media reports said others who suspected they had failed in their applications included British cyclist Bradley Wiggins and diving hopeful Tom Daley.
SYSTEM CRITICISED
The system has been criticised for being too vague and weighted towards more wealthy applicants with the means to apply for hundreds, even thousands, of pounds worth of tickets.
Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London organising committee LOCOG said he realised some people would be "bitterly disappointed" but defended the system as the fairest available.
He said if they had used a first-come-first-served system there would be many more complaints.
"I think it was right to give people over a 1,000 hours to really understand what it was they were wanting, and where the venues were and session-by-session," Coe said.
"There are tickets still to be had. It's certainly not been a fiasco," he said when asked. "We talked to the best brains in this business."
Olympics minister Hugh Robertson told Sky News: "Ticketing is always an extremely difficult subject in any Olympic Games and I think the organising committee have done as well as could possibly be expected against some very trying circumstances".
A further 2.2 million tickets remain to be allocated, with the majority earmarked for overseas fans through their national Olympic associations and the remainder going to sponsors, federations, the Olympic family and rights holders.
LOCOG expects to raise 500 million pounds ($820 million) of its 2.2 billion pounds Games operating budget from the sale of tickets.
( (Editing by John Mehaffey; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
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Speaking at an event to mark the completion of the Olympic "gateway" station at Stratford, east London, Johnson said he would try by "hook or by crook" to get tickets for his family.
"I was proud to be British today because I thought there must be no other country, no other society in the world where you can have the mayor of the host city participating in a ballot to get tickets for his family and get rejected," he said.
Johnson would not say how many tickets he had applied for, other than it was several, adding he was "cheesed off" at his failure.
"I will try again, and I'm sure...the 250,000 people will as well."
More than half of the 650 sessions were oversubscribed and went to ballot, with the showcase opening and closing ceremonies among the events declared sold out.
About 1.8 million people in Britain and the European Union made bids for 20 million tickets during a six-week window, with only 6.6 million on offer.
Successful applicants should have had money drawn from their bank accounts by midnight May 31, although they will not be told which tickets they have secured until June 24.
Media reports said others who suspected they had failed in their applications included British cyclist Bradley Wiggins and diving hopeful Tom Daley.
SYSTEM CRITICISED
The system has been criticised for being too vague and weighted towards more wealthy applicants with the means to apply for hundreds, even thousands, of pounds worth of tickets.
Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London organising committee LOCOG said he realised some people would be "bitterly disappointed" but defended the system as the fairest available.
He said if they had used a first-come-first-served system there would be many more complaints.
"I think it was right to give people over a 1,000 hours to really understand what it was they were wanting, and where the venues were and session-by-session," Coe said.
"There are tickets still to be had. It's certainly not been a fiasco," he said when asked. "We talked to the best brains in this business."
Olympics minister Hugh Robertson told Sky News: "Ticketing is always an extremely difficult subject in any Olympic Games and I think the organising committee have done as well as could possibly be expected against some very trying circumstances".
A further 2.2 million tickets remain to be allocated, with the majority earmarked for overseas fans through their national Olympic associations and the remainder going to sponsors, federations, the Olympic family and rights holders.
LOCOG expects to raise 500 million pounds ($820 million) of its 2.2 billion pounds Games operating budget from the sale of tickets.
( (Editing by John Mehaffey; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
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