Olympics: Beijing Olympics organisers will sell most tickets to the 2008 Games for less than €10 each to give as many people as possible a chance to attend. Tickets to competition events will cost from 30 to 1,000 yuan (€2.90 to €100), with preliminary sessions starting from 30 yuan and finals tickets at 60 yuan (€5.80), the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) said yesterday.
"The Organising Committee was guided by its commitment to ensure the greatest number of people would be able to experience the Olympic values and spirit," read a statement on the BOCOG official website, adding that 58 per cent of tickets will cost no more than 100 yuan (€9.70).
Tickets will be on sale in China in the first half of next year.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) intend to target the entourage of athletes who encourage them to take banned substances, director general David Howman said yesterday.
"It's not just the athletes that cheat by taking doping substances, we know the coaches, the doctors, the trainers are all part and parcel of those who might tempt or persuade athletes to do the wrong thing," he told a news conference at the Asian Games. "We must ensure that those individuals are sanctioned in the same way as the athletes are."
Meanwhile, London 2012 organisers received some welcome relief from the controversy surrounding the cost of the Games after their preparations and budget were praised by the head of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) watchdog body.
IOC co-ordination commission chairman Denis Oswald reported to senior Olympic figures yesterday that he was "very happy" with progress. He said: "London has made a lot of progress and the timelines of the project are going according to schedule."
