On your marks... to queue for the last Olympic tickets

SOUGHT-AFTER Olympics tickets are to be put on sale at special booths immediately before the Games start, it was revealed yesterday.

The move seems likely to cause vast queues and there are predictions some fans will camp out for days in the hope of getting to see the best events.

Demand for most events has been higher than supply with hundreds of thousands failing to get the tickets they bid for online.

Many fans will therefore welcome the fact some will be available in the run-up to the Games, which start at the end of July.

Most are expected to be unsold football tickets, but there will also be returns that could include the most sought-after events – such as the opening ceremony and 100m sprint final.

Organisers are also yet to decide how many tickets will be available at some events. This is because TV companies have not finalised the locations and numbers of cameras, and it is also unclear how many athletes will be attending.

An Olympics spokesman tried to play down the likely availability of tickets at the booths, suggesting there would be few, if any, for the most popular events.

He also claimed it would not spark Wimbledon-style queues.

‘We will have box offices – mostly because we anticipated there might be tickets available just before or during the Games, just in small numbers,’ he said.

‘It won’t be like Wimbledon, where you know certain tickets are going on sale.’ He added: ‘I couldn’t even tell you where the box offices will be at the moment – probably near the venues, but that’s not been confirmed yet. There could well be tickets for the football and Paralympics events.

‘Any talk of queues and people camping out is premature.’

Online ticket sales are yet to end, with the final swathe of about a million – out of a total 10.8million – being offered next month to those who made unsuccessful applications last year.

Fans who failed to secure tickets in the first two rounds will be given a 24-hour window to snap up some of the best seats. Some 20,000 left empty-handed last summer will have a chance to buy tickets for events such as athletics and the opening ceremony.

The remaining 1.2million who missed out in the first ballot, but did not apply in the second, will be given five days to buy what is left.