Supplementary lottery for Tokyo Olympic tickets

NHK -- Jul 31

Organizers of next year's Tokyo Olympics say they will hold an additional online ticket lottery for more than four million people who came up empty-handed in the first one.

Officials of the event's organizing committee on Tuesday say that about 4.16 million people failed to get any tickets in the first round. The winners were announced in June.

Some 5.12 million people applied for the first round, but less than 20 percent of them, or about 960,000 people, won one or more tickets.

Committee officials said the supplementary lottery will be only for those who missed out in the first round.

The officials say many people were disappointed after missing out in the first round and they want to meet requests from as many people as possible.

They said they will accept entries online from early on August 8 to 11:59 a.m. on August 19.

More than 680,000 tickets that were unsold in the first round will be put up for sale. The tickets cover 20 events, including beach volleyball, field hockey and soccer. Tickets for the finals and play-offs will be included.

Each person is eligible to apply for one session of a competition---for up to six tickets for qualifiers and four for medal events. A second choice is available.

Applications will be accepted on the official website for online ticket sales. Lottery results are scheduled to be announced on September 11.