Ticket sales for the 2008 Olympic Games have received overwhelming response as many events including the opening and closing ceremonies were over-subscribed, organizers said on Wednesday.

"With just 10 days until the first phase of sales ends, we have received 360,000 orders for more than 2.2 million tickets," Rong Jun, head of the Beijing Olympic Ticketing Center, told reporters.

"The opening and closing ceremonies were extremely over-subscribed and a random computerized selection process will be used to allocate the tickets," he added.

Rong said that it was difficult to predict the odds because more orders are expected in the coming 10 days.

According to Rong, tickets to a dozen of sports including badminton, table tennis, swimming, diving, gymnastics and basketball are also very hot.

"On the whole, we are very satisfied with the situation. After all, Chinese people are not used to buying tickets more than a year in advance," he said.

In a country with a population of 1.3 billion, many believe that only the luckiest have chance of watching the Games, though three-quarters of the seven million tickets will be reserved for domestic sales.

About 90 percent of the orders were delivered via the Internet, and the rest through Bank of China branches or by mail, said Rong.

In the first phase of ticket sales, people can wait until June 30 to place their orders and tickets will be assigned between July and August.

The second leg of domestic sales will kick off in October and run through December.

(Xinhua News Agency June 21, 2007)