Olympic ticket sales postponed by technical woes

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP)—Anyone hoping to grab some of the last remaining tickets for the 2010 Winter Games will have to wait until next Saturday.

Technical problems hit the ticket Web site and prevented the sale of any of the 100,000 tickets that were to be available at 1 p.m. EST Saturday, said Renee Smith-Valade, vice president of communications for the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee.

Ticket buyers trying to log onto the Web site only got a Google message saying the link appeared to be broken. The committee hopes to have the technical issues ironed out so the ticket sale can begin next week.

The tickets are for all events in the Vancouver area, including gold-medal hockey and the opening and closing ceremonies.

Tickets for events in Whistler, B.C., are not on sale because the transportation system can’t handle any more people coming from outside the area.

About 1.6 million tickets overall are being sold, and organizers are making sure 70 percent of those go to the public.