It was estimated by the controllers that an average of no less than 200,000 applications were being tendered through the website every sixty seconds. That is not including the

extremely long queues outside the banks that were also selling tickets and the congestion of telephone lines to order tickets by phone.

The tickets are being put up for sale on a first-come-first-served basis by the official ticketing website, run by the Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee, BOGOC.

The website acknowledged that they had received 8m hits just in the first hour alone. However, by 11am local time, only 9,000 of those tickets had been sold indeed. Other forms of buying tickets include over the phone and at the selected Banks of China, which have branches all over the country.

Those who have chosen to purchase their ticket at the banks made enormous lines for many hours before the banks even opened and at one particular bank in central Beijing only four clients were able to make their purchase before the computer system crashed. After long hours of waiting the remainder of consumers was to return to their homes by the banks staff. Obviously not many were pleased.

When the news broke, one of the banks employees informed a French news agency the following: "We can't process any orders here, the whole system is down, and I don't think you can buy any tickets in any way right now."

As the host, China would like to offer the ideal Olympic Games and desires to see each and every seat packed with encouraging and nationalistic followers. Nevertheless, the

organizers advised that many fans eager to see the mainly and well-liked events, such as gymnastics, table tennis and the opening and closing ceremonies, may be disillusioned.

The BOGOC website offered a statement acknowledged towards the potential shoppers to be tolerant and to please stop continuously clicking on the site, as this will not help in any way to make the purchase. This is just the second round of ticket sales that has been made to the residents in China and was intended for approximately 1.8m tickets. Last June there was a lottery that gave out 1.6m tickets.