LOCOG Withholds Opening Ceremony, Men's 100M Final Tix For Public Sale Next Year

About 8,000 tickets for the ’12 London Olympics Opening Ceremony and another 8,000 for the track & field men’s 100m final “have been quietly withheld from public sale,” according to Hookham & Ungoed-Thomas of the LONDON TIMES. The tickets “have been stockpiled for sale to the public next year.” LOCOG during the second round of sales on Friday released 2.3 million tickets, 1.7 million for soccer matches. Fewer than a "quarter of the tickets offered for sale so far have been in the Olympic Park venues." Hookham & Ungoed-Thomas noted the “large demand generated by forcing the public to enter a lottery appears to have been engineered” by LOCOG to “ensure it will hit its target” of US$798M from ticket sales (LONDON TIMES, 6/26). In London, Patrick Sawer noted “foreigners snapped up just under 150,000 Olympics tickets allocated to Britons in the official ballot” for the Games. Fans from other European Union countries “were free to apply for tickets” that had been “allocated for home fans -- even though each European country has been allocated its own tranche of seats at events next year” (London TELELGRAPH, 6/26). A FINANCIAL TIMES editorial noted the “bad news” for LOCOG is that, “in spite of their efforts to control secondary sales, the touts will be the intermediaries.” The profits will “thus go to the lucky few who won the most popular tickets in the lottery, rather than the organisers themselves.” LOCOG “might have been better off selling tickets on a first-come, first-served basis” (FINANCIAL TIMES, 6/25).

COURTING MUSIC: The GUARDIAN’s Addley & Gibson note under plans being considered by LOCOG, tennis Olympians “could enter the courts to rousing tunes of their choice, creating arguably the rowdiest atmosphere seen at Wimbledon in its 125-year history.” It is “part of a strategy to differentiate Olympic tennis from the 2012 Wimbledon championships, which will have concluded just 20 days earlier.” LOCOG Dir of Sport Debbie Jevans said, "What we don't want is to come here and everyone say this is Wimbledon part two a few weeks later." She added, "When it comes to 2012, we want the look and feel to be distinctive" (GUARDIAN, 6/27).

A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD ME: In London, Nick Pearce reports athletes “have been given the green light to tweet and blog from the London 2012 Olympics, but could face expulsion for posting X-rated content or, even worse, by reporting on events in a journalistic manner.” The IOC has insisted that athletes “restrict their blogging to first-person diary entries that include no ‘vulgar or obscene words or images.’" Athletes tweeting for commercial purposes “could also find themselves at risk of having their Olympic accreditation removed, which effectively amounts to a ban.” Publishing still photographs from inside the venues “is permitted but the IOC strictly forbids the broadcast of audio and video as a way of protecting its intellectual property” (TELEGRAPH.co.uk, 6/27).