Olympic mania arrived early in Beijing yesterday as tens of thousands of people queued, pushed and jostled for the last batch of Games tickets to go on sale.

At stake for these ordinary Chinese was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to catch mainland sporting heroes, such as hurdler Liu Xiang and diver Guo Jingjing, in action and possibly win an Olympic gold on home soil.

The overwhelming demand sparked angry exchanges between frustrated ticket buyers and the edgy security forces at the most crowded ticketing station in Beijing, located south of the National Stadium, the main Olympic venue nicknamed the 'Bird's Nest'.

This station, which sold tickets for events at the National Stadium and the 'Water Cube'' stadium, drew a 50,000-strong crowd yesterday morning. Some people had been queuing since Wednesday.

Pandemonium broke out when ticket sales began at 9am. The police's badly organized attempts at crowd control resulted in queue-cutting and ill-tempered shoving matches between ticket buyers, many of whom appeared severely worn out by the long wait.

Several middle-aged men were hauled away for rowdy behavior. That did not stop the crowd from jeering at the security forces and giving them the thumbs-down sign.

Adding to the chaos was a scuffle between the police and several Hong Kong journalists who tried to film the unruly scenes.
Footage on Hong Kong television, which swiftly made its way to YouTube, showed one reporter being pushed to the ground while another was detained and held in a police van.

A police spokesman admitted that they had underestimated the number of ticket buyers.

'The queue was orderly at first, but once sales began, some members of the public got very excited, so we must maintain order and safety,' he said.

The Games' organizers announced on Tuesday that the last batch of tickets would go on sale yesterday. A total of 6.8 million tickets have been made available for domestic and foreign sales.

About 820,000 tickets were up for grabs yesterday in Beijing and several co-host cities such as Tianjin, Shanghai and Shenyang. The most coveted ones were undoubtedly the 250,000 tickets for events to be held in the Chinese capital.

Some hardcore fans, such as Zhao Yufeng, said they had been queuing for nearly 40 hours. They had roped in friends and family members to help keep their place in the queue, survived on bottled water, biscuits and instant noodles as well as slept in the open.

The hardship was well worth it, a jubilant Zhao told reporters as she waved two tickets priced at 150 yuan ($22) each for the diving competition.

Undergraduate Sun Jia-ao, who obtained tickets for the same event, said, 'It was definitely well worth the wait. This is a big event for our country, and I naturally want to be a part of it. It won't be the same if you just watch it on television.'

A woman who wanted to be identified only by her surname Liu said she was in a queue for nearly 36 hours, but was squeezed out early yesterday morning when the police began cordoning off some areas near the ticketing station.

Another man complained that he lost his place in the queue after leaving for two minutes to buy a bottle of mineral water.

Ticket sales at the other co-host cities were reportedly brisk, though not as intense as the scenes seen in Beijing.

Ticket scalpers also appeared to have kept a low profile, after police warned a day earlier that they had nabbed 60 such suspects in the past two months. These scalpers could face up to 15 days in detention if found guilty.