Scuffles broke out at one ticket site as officials opened additional sales windows, causing some fans to stampede ahead of others in a bid to buy some of the 250,000 tickets on sale, but an official said the start of the sale went well.

"There were so many people who wanted tickets so we decided to open more ticket windows ... In general, so far the ticket sale has gone smoothly," said Sun Weide, spokesman for Beijing's Olympic organizing committee.

In addition to the pushing among fans, several Hong Kong media outlets complained about being pushed around by security officials.

Footage from Hong Kong Cable TV showed a policeman putting his arm around the neck of a Hong Kong Cable TV reporter and pulling him to the ground.

The reporter said he was assaulted after his crew refused to leave a media zone, Cable TV reported. They were seen surrounded by dozens of police.

A spokeswoman for Hong Kong Cable TV said it was "unacceptable" for Chinese authorities to treat the media that way.

"We hope the authorities will live up to their earlier promise to allow full freedom of the press during the Olympic Games," said Shum Siu-wah.

Zhang Xiaojing, 17, who came from Changzhou in Hebei province to buy tickets, said the line was pretty orderly when she arrived Thursday afternoon, but there was an uncontrolled rush early Friday when the additional sales windows opened.

"People started to stampede in," she said.

But for others like Xue Manjie, the wait was worth it. The 19-year-old and eight friends bought tickets after waiting since Thursday morning.

"We can't get the tickets for the games we want but at least we can have a look inside the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest," Xue said, referring to the swimming venue and the main athletics stadium, while flashing his tickets.

Xue and his friends, who just finished their university entrance exams, wanted tickets to the basketball, but had to settle for synchronized swimming and preliminary track and field events.

At Wukesong in the western part of Beijing, tens of thousands of people were lined up to buy tickets for the popular basketball competition. About 20,000 basketball tickets were expected to go on sale.

Besides the tickets for Olympic events in Beijing, another 570,000 tickets are on sale for football matches in co-host cities: Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao.

All told 6.8 million Olympic tickets have been available for domestic and foreign sales. The Olympics start Aug. 8.

In November, organizers were embarrassed when the computer system crashed, forcing organizers to sack the Olympic ticketing chief and revert to a lottery system to sell tickets.

Organizers have said they are taking precautions against fake tickets and black market scalping, both of which are common in China.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Thursday Beijing police have detained 60 suspects for scalping Olympic Games tickets in the past two months, citing a police spokesman. Those found selling tickets on the black market could face 10 to 15 days in detention, Xinhua said.

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