So, unless you’ve had a large sum of cash deducted from your bank account this week, it looks like you’ve failed in your bid to secure tickets for the 2012 Olympics in London.
Indeed, the Mayor awoke this week to find his bank balance in good order having spectacularly failed to secure any of the tickets he bid for in the ballot. And, in true British style, he revelled in the fact that he was a loser (if there was an Olympic medal for ‘gallant losers’ we’d win that every Games.)
“I am proud to be British. No other country or culture in the world would have a situation where the mayor of the host city goes into a ballot for tickets for his family and gets rejected,” he said.
However, many have been critical of the ticket allocation process. Stephen Hunt, an insolvency practitioner from Hertfordshire, briefly became Britain’s Most Hated Man this week when it was revealed that he’d secured £11,000 worth of tickets whilst a quarter of a million people walked away empty handed.
Despite being ‘cheesed off’ with the outcome, the Mayor was pleased with the demand for tickets and pointed out that there would be further chances to buy tickets in July and in November.
However, with some of Britain’s best medal hopes also missing out on tickets – meaning for example that cyclist Bradley Wiggins will have to deny either his wife or one of his children from seeing him in action – there have been criticisms of the system which appeared to favour wealthier applicants who could afford to bid for a higher number of tickets.
Organisers defended the allocation, however, with 2012 tickets boss Chris Townsend saying that leftovers from the allocation would be available to first-round applicants on a first come first served basis.
He said: “We have received a fantastic response from the public across all sports, including the less mainstream sports.
“We’ll be releasing further information once the process is complete after June 10.�