What Would You Do for an Olympics Ticket?

BEIJING, July 25, 2008 — -- The aggressive crowds, thick pollution, and 90-degree heat didn't stop tens of thousands of Chinese from pitching makeshift tents and lining up throughout the city Thursday for the last chance to score tickets to next month's Olympics in Beijing.

Tickets went on sale today at 9 a.m. local time. A few at the front of the line said they headed straight for the ticket office as soon word got out on Wednesday.

Standing in the midst of thousands of ticket-hungry people this morning, the scene felt both orderly and chaotic.

Flocks of volunteers lined the streets of the Olympic Sports Center, as people flooded the grounds with visions of Olympic glory, or at least tickets, dancing in their heads.

Citizens and police peacefully chatted and sweated the hours away. Bottled water was distributed to crowds in lines over 20 people deep and more than a kilometer long.

The crowd was as diverse as it was thick. A married couple from Anhui lined up next to a student waiting to get her grandmother a ticket. Fans traveled from as far as southern Fujian Province (across the strait from Taiwan) and as near as Beijing to try their luck in the last of four ticketing phases.

Many families anticipated the long wait, packing picnic lunches, books and iPods. One family from neighboring Hebei Province sprawled out on bamboo mats near the end of the line. The father, parked beneath an umbrella, said they had been waiting for more than two hours and hadn't moved a centimeter.

"There are too many people here, but we were just told we'll definitely get some tickets. So we're staying," he told ABCNews.com. He and the others camped out nearby all said they were looking for tickets for the same sport: Diving. China is considered to have one of the best diving teams in the world.

A Beijing college student said, "Guo Jingjing [China's top female diver] is China's pride."