A photographer was taken into custody over an assault on a police officer as more than 30,000 people lined up for their final chance of buying tickets for the Olympic Games near the Bird's Nest in Beijing yesterday.

Felix Wong, from South China Morning Post, broke through a barricade set up for crowd control and kicked a policeman in the groin, putting him in hospital.

"Police immediately informed the SCMP's Beijing bureau about the incident," a public security bureau spokesman said. "About 4pm, a bureau director and Wong went to the hospital to visit the injured officer, Zhang Yuzhu. Wong made a sincere apology to Zhang and presented flowers."

Wong was then released.

Because of the numbers of people, police cordoned off some areas to maintain order.

Olympic organizers announced on Tuesday that the final batch of 820,000 tickets would go on sale, including 250,000 tickets to events that would be held in the capital.

Would-be buyers became impatient yesterday because of hot weather and the long waiting time.

Yesterday marked the fourth phase of ticket sales to individuals with a time frame between 9am and 6pm.

With a view toward giving more people a chance to watch the Games and preventing scalping, organizers stipulated that only two tickets would be available per person in a single sale.

The waiting line extended for more than two kilometers at the Bird's Nest booth.

"The Olympics finally come to China ... I cannot afford to miss the opportunity," said a 67-year-old woman surnamed Wang, who had just bought two tickets,.

Xu Yongheng, the first in line, was said to have waited for almost 48 hours.

Although temperatures hovered around 34 degrees Celsius, people did not leave for a break and ambulances stood by in case of emergencies. Tents and mats were dotted along the line.

By noon, tickets for gymnastics, diving and football were sold out.

The last phase of ticket sales was estimated to have attracted at least 50,000 people, while the planned number of tickets to be sold yesterday was 30,098. Organizers changed plans so as not to let down those waiting in line and decided to sell tickets for athletics, which were scheduled to be sold today.

People who got tickets for the men's final of the 110m hurdles, in which Liu Xiang will hopefully defend his Olympic title, were so excited that they rushed to pose for media cameras. "I have an extraordinary feeling after realizing my Olympics dream," said Zhang Bin.

About 90 percent of tickets were sold out during the first three phases of sales. Among the remaining tickets were those for football events in Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao.

Fans lined up for hundreds of meters at booths near Shanghai Stadium yesterday.

"We came here on Thursday at noon," said young fan Yang Jinglian. "The five of us took turns to wait. We slept outside the booth last night."

He had just managed to get a ticket to see his favorite team, Argentina, play.