London 2012 Olympic Games Ticket Resale Hit by Website Collapse

Eager people rushing to snatch tickets for the London 2012 Olympic Games in a resale have suffered technical problems with the official ticketing website.

Throughout the day excited sports fans flocked in their thousands to the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games' (Locog) ticketing website to buy up unwanted tickets put back on sale by the owners.

The sheer number of users on the site is causing problems for the service, powered by Ticketmaster, which is showing purchased tickets as still available and not functioning properly.

A spokesperson for Locog said Ticketmaster is aware of the problem and is looking into it.

Locog had the resale to prevent unwanted tickets from leaving empty seats at events, as well as to prevent them finding a way on to the black market.

It is illegal to sell London 2012 Olympic Games tickets outside of Locog's official channels.

People will be able to buy resale tickets, which must be sold at face value, up until 3 February.

Another batch of tickets - 1.3million of them - will go on sale in April on a first-come-first-serve basis.

There had been recent uproar when it was revealed that Locog sold twice as many tickets as there were seats for the synchronised swimming event, leaving them forced to find tickets to other events to prevent disappointment.