Olympics: One million bid to watch 100m final in 2012

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More than a million people have applied to watch the men's 100 metres final at the 2012 London Olympics, organisers have revealed, meaning that hundreds of thousands will be disappointed.

The Olympic Stadium has a capacity of 80,000 but only about half of these places are available to the public for the sought-after sprint on August 5, with the rest taken up by sponsors, VIPs and the media, officials said.

"We have more than one million requests for the 100-metre final," a spokeswoman for the London 2012 Organising Committee told AFP.

The 100m final is likely to feature reigning Olympic champion and world record holder Usain Bolt.

During a six-week application window that closed last month, about 1.8 million people submitted more than 20 million requests to watch Olympic events, with a total of 6.6 million tickets available.

Oversubscribed events will be allocated by ballot, and applicants will be notified by June 24 at the latest whether they have been successful - although the money will be taken out of their bank accounts this month.