Tickets for '02 Games going on sale

Ladies and gentlemen, start your search engines.

The great race for 2002 Winter Games tickets is about to begin, and organizers insist the best bet for getting tickets will be to purchase ducats online (but don't forget your Visa card).

On Tuesday, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee will begin taking orders for 885,000 Games tickets being made available to the U.S. public, with a minimum of 20 percent earmarked for Utahns. Another 150,000 are reserved for international customers.

SLOC President Mitt Romney said organizers expect to sell at least 82 percent of the tickets. That revenue, when combined with the sales of additional tickets to sponsors and national Olympic committees around the world, is expected to raise $180 million — hardly chump change for the cash-strapped organizing committee.

SLOC's ticket program — the how-to-get-them nuts and bolts — will be unveiled Sunday, while tickets themselves will be sold beginning Tuesday, Oct. 10.

The sale of tickets, particularly those hard-to-get tickets for high-demand events, has "been the issue Olympic committees always seem to get in trouble over," Romney said. Summer Games organizers in Sydney were the subject of a major ticketing scandal, while Games organizers in other locales have had problems ranging from counterfeit tickets to price gouging.

SLOC is gearing up to deflect any criticism before it becomes a problem. "This is the full-disclosure Olympic committee," Romney said. "We're not withholding anything about the ticket program."

Would-be spectators can order their tickets online at ( www.slc2002.org), while mail-order customers can get a slick color schedule of events and ticket packages sent to them for $5 by calling 1-800-TICKETS.

Romney is expecting a crush of customers come Tuesday, and even 2,400 access windows to the ticketing Internet site are expected to be insufficient at first. "We expect we will be swamped the first couple of days," he said.

SLOC is offering 79 different ticket packages that mix and match different events, some with budget-minded customers in mind and others that cost more than $1,000 a set. There are even "premium" packages that go for up to $1 million.

On the other hand, tickets to medals ceremonies will be free.