Some 1.8 million people - 95 per cent of them from the UK - have submitted applications for the 6.6 million tickets with many sports already sold out including track cycling, rhythmic gymnastics, triathlon, modern pentathlon and equestrian cross country.

The Opening and Closing Ceremonies are also sell-outs and will have a ballot to decide ticket allocations as will most of the sessions in swimming and tennis, and the high-profile athletics sessions.

"We are thrilled with the response right across the board, in all sports and all sessions," said Coe.

"Certain events have seen massive demand - for example the Opening Ceremony, which is more than 10 times oversubscribed, so there will understandably be disappointment and we will find a way to go back to those people with other tickets.

"What is most encouraging is that the majority of applications are for multiple tickets and for several sports, which shows that friends and family are planning to go to the Games together."

More than half of the 650 sessions are oversubscribed and tickets for these will be allocated via ballots.

Coe defended the system which suffered a late glitch when it struggled to cope with the last minute surge in demand, although he denied claims that the London 2012 website crashed under the pressure.

"It was the right decision to have the six-week window," he exclusively told insidethegames.

"Over a thousand hours you are going to have some hotspots and we had a bit of a hotspot last night.

"It was big last night, really big.

"From about 10 o'clock onwards we had about an hour that it literally did take off and it slowed the process down by, on balance, by about 40 minutes so we made the decision to extend it from midnight to one o'clock.

"I've spoken to a lot of people who were struggling before 10.30pm but got on before 1am.

"The first two hours and the last two hours were always likely to the busiest and that's what happened.

"But millions of people and tickets have been secured in a process that we've had very good feedback on."

London 2012 organisers will now check applications before running computerised ballots for those sessions which are oversubscribed.

Money will be taken from people's accounts from May 10 but they will not receive formal confirmation of which events they have been successful in buying tickets for until June.

There will be another chance to buy remaining tickets in June and July.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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