Olympic ticket sales website swamped on deadline day

Angry applicants took to Twitter to complain, with many admitting they had given up.

London 2012 hopes to raise £200 million from ticket sales and said the deadline for applying for the 6.6 million available was extended until 1am. A spokesman blamed a "temporary delay in accessing the ticketing site following a surge of applications around 10.30pm".

London 2012 ambassador and former javelin thrower Steve Backley tweeted sports presenter Gabby Logan, telling her: "I've given up! Looks like I'll have to make a comeback just to get in!"

Sam Morris, a digital media director, said: "We had two laptops trying to get a connection, and we simply couldn't get through." Officials denied the site crashed. Fans will find out whether they have secured tickets by June 24.

Earlier a spokesman said: "Some people experienced temporary delay in accessing the Olympic ticketing site following a surge of applications around 10.30pm this evening. This surge has now evened out and the system is working normally. Applications were still being processed during this period.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this delay may have caused and the ticketing system will remain open until 1am."

Members of the public using the site to register for tickets, which will be allocated later by ballot, were met by a holding message.

The website, www.tickets.london2012.com, displayed a page telling would-be customers: "We're experiencing high demand. You will be automatically directed to the page requested as soon as it becomes available. Thank you for your patience."

After a lengthy waiting period the holding page timed out leaving some users with a new page that read simply: "Sorry, we cannot process your request. Please try again later."

Sports fans were told that the six-week ticket application was a marathon, not a sprint, and that they would have the same chance of getting a ticket on the first or the last day of the process.

There were 650 sessions across 26 sports and 17 days to choose from, and people were limited to a maximum of 20 events each.

Prices ranged from £20 to £2,012.

They included paying up to £2,012 for the opening ceremony, up to £725 for the showpiece 100m athletics final and between £50 and £325 for the track cycling finals.

London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton had said that since last Friday the number of applications had jumped from "a high level go to a really high level".

The last week had seen "three or four times the applications above and beyond what was coming in for the previous five weeks".

Despite being aware there would be "incredible" interest in the final days before the applications closed, he was also confident the system could cope and avoid a meltdown.

He said: "The system has actually worked faultlessly and with a process of this scale and complexity that is extraordinary.

"When things work, nobody really notices and the job my team has done with this system is phenomenal."

London 2012 needs to raise £500 million from the sale of tickets as it tries to raise £2 billion from the private sector to stage the Games.