Organizers race to fix ticket glitch

LONDON— A ticketing error by London Olympic organizers will pay off for some buyers: Instead of tickets for synchronized swimming, they’ll get to see the 100-metre final.

Organizers said Wednesday they accidentally oversold 10,000 tickets for synchronized swimming because of human error in processing applications. As a result, customers have been offered the chance to exchange those tickets for other events which they also applied for but were unsuccessful — including some of the most glamorous and coveted.

About 200 people will now be able to watch the men’s 100-metre final in the Olympic Stadium, the highest-demand sports event of the Games, having previously being left empty-handed last year.

Organizers realized a few weeks ago they had sold double the number of tickets available for four sessions of synchronized swimming. “In December we contacted around 3,000 customers who had applied for tickets in the four sessions during the second round sales process,” the organizing committee said in a statement Wednesday. “We are exchanging their synchronized swimming tickets for tickets in other sports that they originally applied for.”

The alternate tickets will come from the pot of 1 million for all events that go on sale in May once seating configurations are finalized.

The process for people to resell any unwanted tickets in their possession opens Friday. Many peoplehave been unhappy at the ticketing system because of its complexity and perceived lack of fairness of the ballot. Two-thirds of ticket seekers failed to earn any in a first round of sales last year, with 22 million requests for the 6.6 million tickets available.