The police were called in to control a crowd of more than 50 000 people who queued for the fourth and last batch of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games tickets today (Friday). There were chaos, disorder and disappointment. Despite these, there were happy Chinese who got the tickets after spending two nights outside a ticket selling center.

The final 250,000 Olympic tickets for events in Beijing including athletics, diving, and gymnastics went on sale at 9:00am (0100 GMT).

Demand was so high that more than 10,000 people were in the line by Thursday at one of the main ticket selling centres near the Olympic Stadium and by early Friday huge reinforcements of police were moved in to maintain order as numbers ballooned to between 40,000 and 50,000.

Han Ruxiang, 76, had spent two nights sleeping on a bamboo mat so that he and his 67-year-old wife could go to see the finals of the diving competition.

“How can you be Chinese and not go to the Olympics when it is in China?” he said. “I am tired but so happy.

Is all worth it, eh.

Via AFP