By the time Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic caldron at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games on Friday, the SOCOG organizers had sold more than 84 percent of the tickets for events -- a figure they claimed Saturday is a record.
A statement released by SOCOG details that the previous sales record, set at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, was 82.3 percent. By midnight Friday, more than 5.4 million tickets had been sold to Sydney events and more than 648,000 to soccer matches being held in other cities.
SOCOG will be relieved with the figures after a tumultuous 12 months leading up to the Games. SOCOG President Michael Knight last year made a public apology to Australians who were angered by a ticket plan to offer 500,000 of the best tickets exclusively to the wealthy.