Michelle

Tens of thousands of Olympics fans were left furious yesterday after the new ticket resale website crashed and wrongly advertised sold seats.

They were at first delighted to find that tickets for the most popular events, including track cycling, athletics, diving finals and the opening and closing ceremonies, were back on offer.

But their joy turned to disappointment when they reached the online checkout and were told that there were ‘no tickets found’.

Last night ticket-hunters described the website as ‘shambolic’ and voiced their frustrations on social networking site Twitter.

Kathryn Cook wrote: ‘How to ruin your Friday – attempt to buy Olympics tickets,’ while Scott Davis wrote: ‘Olympic tickets system is beyond a joke! Hope they do a better job with the Games in July, or we’ll be a laughing stock!’

It is the third time that Locog has been criticised over ticket sales. Last May, a ballot system left two-thirds of applicants without tickets, while technical problems hampered online sales in June.

Daily Mail

Back when London won the bid to stage the 2012 games, they promised that their 'brand would evolve'... and so, we, the Olympic enthusiasts, have waited for this evolution.

Well, it's November 2011, 10 months before the start of the Games, and we're still waiting. Did the evolution even begin?

London explained (the reasoning behind it's 'bold' logo), that we were in a different time.. the digital age.

It has a movement to it and it will evolve and change, a London spokesperson said of the £400,000 brand at the time of inception.


-- So are we to assume, the fact it changes colours and you can spray a Union Jack flag over it... the evolution of this brand?

If so, London has done little to evolve the digital age. The entire experiment has been a right belly flop, and their website is lacking in almost all departments. Not only is it not creative, it is not even all that user-friendly.

Maybe we'll see something new and different from the start of the year, but frankly... I won't be holding my breath.

Canada's Abby Hoffman was elected to the IAAF's vice presidents table this morning, only to be told that the voting process had suffered 'technical problems'. In a second round of voting, she lost some 50 votes, allowing Sergey Bubka (a darling of the IAAF) to be re-elected.

Hoffman is deeply confused by the days events..

"The whole election process was a pretty messy affair," she told insidethegames. The 64-year-old Canadian 1966 Commonwealth Games 880 yards champion and former director general of Sports Canada did not buy into the theory that she had only been elected initially thanks to the electronic voting system.

"Whatever the dynamics was underpinning the elections in the morning, when I had enough votes to be elected, it was a completely different dynamic in the afternoon," she said. "The reality is that the one [election] in the afternoon was the one that counted.

"But I'm not happy obviously about how things unfolded during the day."

Hoffman believes that once reality set in among the delegates that they had voted in a woman ahead of such a high-profile figure as Bubka it led to a change of mind. "Some people could say that the idea of having a female vice-president seemed like a good idea but when the prospect of it became a reality it wasn't so appealing," she said.

"I lost over 50 votes between the morning and the afternoon - was that the result of technical issues or something more that went on? "But I think it's quite clear to everybody that Sergey Bubka, having been the odd man out in the morning, pulled out all the stops to get himself back in position.

"But he still ended up with the lowest votes of all the candidates so I think there was something definitely going on there that was nothing to do with the computer system."

Hoffman admitted that the whole day had been an unedifying one for athletics.

"I feel worse just in terms of the reputation of the sport we couldn't pull off a proper election campaign," she said. "That's not a pretty picture for us."

insidethegames

Future of London 2012 Olympic Stadium in doubt after judicial review granted
By Duncan Mackay in Daegu

August 24 - Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient have been granted permission to seek a judicial review into the awarding of ownership of the Olympic Stadium to West Ham United after London 2012 - a move that a senior official here warned could have a serious impact on Britain's bid to host the 2017 World Athletics Championships.

insidethegames

Riot blaze: North London in flames as police cars, bus and shops burn over police shooting of 'gangster'

Twenty-six police officers hurt in clashes being treated in hospital
Scotland Yard still dealing with 'isolated pockets of crime' this morning
Mob of 500 people protest about death of father-of-four Mark Duggan who was shot by officers
100 riot police on the streets as Tottenham burns
Fears that violence was fanned by Twitter as picture of burning police car was re-tweeted more than 100 times
Shop looted and youths storm McDonald's and start cooking their own food
Mail on Sunday photographers beaten and mugged by masked thugs


Read more: http://www.dailymail...l#ixzz1UKoEJzaG

- photos used from Dailymail.co.uk