The booking system for 2008 Olympics [Images] tickets crashed under huge demand, leaving thousands of people disappointed, as 1.85 million tickets went on sale in the second round on Tuesday.

People stood in serpentine queues for hours in front of designated 1,000 branches of the Bank of China, but most of them left after the system crashed.

Within two hours after the sale began, some 9,000 tickets were sold, while the official website saw eight million hits in the first hour, the Beijing [Images] Olympic Ticketing Centre said.

"Our system has been slow and people can't log onto it," Rong Jun, head of the Olympic Ticketing Center was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

"We had tested the booking system several times, but the number of buyers are still out of our expectations," Xu Chen, head of the Olympic affairs office at the Bank of China, said.

Ticket prices for 28 sports sessions range from 30 Yuan to 1,000 Yuan and the most expensive are the tickets for the opening ceremony on August 8, which cost up to 5,000 Yuan.

The Organising committee had announced that the tickets would be sold on first come, first serve basis.

In the first round of sale between April and August, 63,000 tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies at the 91,000 seat capacity stadium and over two million tickets for the sports events were sold.

To keep the ticket prices within the reach of average Chinese residents, about 58 per cent of the tickets are priced at 100 Yuans (about US $13.3) or below, and 14 per cent will be earmarked for Chinese students for 10 Yuans or less.