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The circus of the Olympic Games comes to town

HANCOCK'S GAMES: The Olympic Village formally opened on Sunday and athletes are moving in, while the last batch of tickets that went on sale caused a frenzy. The Olympic circus has arrived and with it has come the hangers-on: tourists, journalists and crazies.

A-bei Ge (阿貝哥) is one of them. A rickshaw driver, he decided a year ago he would make the 4,000km ride from his hometown in Zhejiang Province to Beijing for the Games. He has shaved his hair into colored Olympic Rings (though red is pink) and wears a pair of gold rimmed, dragon-shaped sunglasses.

On Friday near the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium, A-bei was accompanied by a fellow rickshaw driver sporting a snaggletooth. Their stories are well known in China, where they are referred to as “Olympic madmen.” A-bei points to the back of his tricycle and a board listing the media organizations that have interviewed him.

He keeps repeating “One world, one dream,” the Beijing Games slogan, shakes hands with anyone who comes near and poses for photos. He said he’s doing his bit to support the Olympics and asks people to sign a banner that he plans to give to the Beijing Olympic committee.

About 1km away there was more madness, at the main ticket sales office that was flogging part of the final tranche of 820,000 tickets for the Games.

More than 30,000 people had queued overnight and the demand proved overwhelming. Tempers snapped, journalists and some in the crowd wrestled with police. The aftermath looked like a war zone of billowing dust, wreckage and trash.

There were three foreign students who had waited in line, without success, for 14 hours. They said they got left behind in a 3am melee for tickets that turned nasty and left them in the cold.

“It was queuing at first, then it kind of dissolved,” said Jamie Ganzhorn, from Michigan, who studies Chinese. “We were all so mad we just didn’t want to talk to them [the police].”

Later on Friday evening order had been restored as police and soldiers moved people along in single file to the ticket booths. The mood was festive as they realized they would get tickets in an hour of so.

According to organizers, all tickets were sold in just over two days. There were scalpers, despite 60 reported arrests and the threat of 10 to 15 days in jail.

A pair of tickets to a track-and-field session at the Bird’s Nest that originally cost 100 yuan (US$15) each were on offer at double the price. At the other end of the scale, a 5,000 yuan opening ceremony ticket was resold for 210,000 yuan.

Jim Yao, a student at the University of International Relations, learned from the online grapevine that he could get tickets, then spent just over three hours sealing the deal. He was feeling flush.

“It’s just a great moment for China. You can feel it, it’s great to be part of it,” he said after picking up two tickets — all he was allowed to buy — for track and field.

On Sunday morning, a smoggy day, the Olympic Village was officially opened by its mayor Chen Zhili (陳至立) and members from the 1,099-member Chinese delegation started moving in.

The 42 apartment blocks can house up to 17,000 people and have a full range of facilities to make athletes feel at home.
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