The EOC Congress heard more than two million people had registered for the Tokyo 2020 ticket lottery than opened on May 9 ©Tokyo 2020

Tokyo 2020 organisers told the 40th European Olympic Committees Seminar here that “more than two million” people had registered with the Games ticketing site ahead of the ticket lottery launch on May 9, with the figure having doubled since.

The Japanese public have been registering for the lottery, prior to the first phase of sales.

Updating delegates on progress, Toru Kobayashi, Tokyo 2020’s head of National Olympic Committee/National Paralympic Committee games services, said “the number of people registering their IDs and credit cards for domestic sales hit the target of more than two million users".

Kyodo News reported organisers as saying that the number of people who had registered by the opening day was already around 2.95 million, almost a million more than those who had registered to purchase tickets for the 2012 London Olympics.

Tokyo 2020 have since confirmed a total of 4,831,688 people have now registered with the Games ticketing site.

The ticket lottery application period ends on May 28 and results will be announced on June 20, a week after a new law prohibiting ticket scalping comes into effect.

Kobayashi added that, as part of efforts to respond to the “New Norm” reconfiguring of the International Olympic Committee’s Agenda 2020, Tokyo 2020 organisers had simplified the Team Welcome Ceremony, and announced that it was now optional.

Organisers have also released details of a Bed Return Policy, also established to trim costs.

Meanwhile Russia’s 14-year-old double world junior figure skating champion, Alexandra Trusova,  has been chosen from five contenders as winner of the EOC’s Piotr Nurowski best European winter athlete award.