ORGANIZERS of the Beijing Olympics announced yesterday that the third round of domestic ticket sales would start May 5 and end June 9.

A total of 1.38 million tickets will be put on sale for 16 disciplines, including athletics, boxing, basketball and football. Buyers are allowed to purchase a maximum of six tickets — three tickets each for two sessions — but they can buy six more once they have paid for the first six.

Tickets will be sold on a "first come, first served" basis at Bank of China outlets and on the official ticketing Web site, Zhu Yan, head of the Olympics ticketing center, told a press conference.

"There are roughly 100 days to go before the Games open. We don't have enough time for a lottery draw," said Zhu.

Zhu promised that the meltdown of the booking system, which disrupted the earlier round of ticket sales, would not happen again.

"I have confidence in the system because the ticketing sponsors have made a lot of improvement," he said.

The design for the tickets was also unveiled Wednesday. It has the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, and the cloud of promise as its main visual elements, said Zhu.

"We have adopted a series of anti-counterfeiting technologies in the process of designing the tickets. It is almost impossible to create fake tickets," he said.

(Xinhua)