Recently I’ve been getting more junk mail than normal. Things like this tend to go in cycles, but the upswings are always irritating. Fortunately for me I went through my spam folder to discover a little notification from the IOC: my tickets from last month’s lottery process have finally come through. Since I received my letter on Monday several friends, both Chinese and foreign, have told me that they too won tickets.

According to the Beijing Olympics website about 12,000 foreign residents of China applied for tickets before the July 31st deadline. If my results are any indication people are going to be pleasantly surprised with their success. In total I was awarded 10 tickets to four events. I might have preferred if two weren’t at the same time on the same day, but I don’t mind selling some anyway. Some of my other friends received as many as 17, although one won tickets for the equestrian which she failed to realize was in Hong Kong. Ooops.

Not surprisingly basketball turned out to be the most popular event, and I failed to procure any despite applying with several of my slots. Diving also proved to be quite popular, most likely more as a result of Chinese rather than foreign demand.

There are a few things that came out from this process some of which I find utterly baffling:

• People could only apply for one ticket to the opening ceremony, because nothing is more fun than attending a memorable event by yourself.
• You could sign up for marathon tickets even though they were free and the course is 26.2 miles long. In other words, odds are you didn’t need to sign up (plus we don’t even know what city it will be in!)
• Several events will not be held in Beijing and will instead be in the following cities: Hong Kong (equestrian), Shanghai (some soccer matches), and Qingdao (boating).
• 44% of tickets were awarded to people in Beijing
• The most expensive tickets to a sports event (not opening/closing ceremonies) was 1000 RMB (basketball finals), far lower than past years. The cheapest tickets, other than the marathon, were 10 RMB specials for Chinese students.

Thoughts?