Tokyo 2020 update: UK ticket sales, plus medals made from mobile phones
A limited batch of tickets to next year’s Olympic Games are set to go on sale to UK residents on Tuesday (12 November).
Tickets to the 2020 Games (24 July to 9 August) are released in batches and British residents must be registered on the Team GB Live website in order to buy.
“From 10am on Tuesday 12 November, there will be a release of a limited number of tickets for Tokyo 2020 which means you can be part of the action in Japan next summer,” said a statement on the official UK ticket booking page.
This is in addition to packages that are already available. These include tickets, flights, accommodation and more, for which fans will need deep pockets — the cheapest of these is a four-day trip to watch the dressage and starts at £5,995 per person.
There is a separate website, Nirvana, for fans wishing to buy tickets to the Paralympics (25 August to 6 September). Tickets for the para equestrian competitions are currently listed as being “on request”, with fans asked to contact the Nirvana team for details.
According to the official ticketing guide, equestrian tickets for the Olympics are priced between 3,000 (£21) and 16,000 yen (£114), with further discounts for group bookings. Cross-country day tickets are priced at 4,000 (£28) yen, while the best seats for the final in all three disciplines are set at 16,000 yen (£114). The most expensive tickets on sale are the best seats for the opening ceremony, which are listed as 300,000 yen (£2,142).
A new record for Paralympic ticket demand has already been set, with 390,000 Japanese residents applying for tickets in the first draw — more than three-times the amount applying for the first ballot at London 2012.
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The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said these were “well spread” across the 22 sports.
“The demand for tickets experienced during the first Tokyo 2020 Paralympic ticket lottery is unprecedented and like nothing we have seen before in Paralympic Games history,” said IPC president Andrew Parsons.
“London 2012 set the benchmark high with 116,000 applicants in their first ticketing window back in 2011, but the Japanese public have completely blown this figure out of the water with around 390,000 applicants.
“This is further proof that the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games are on course to be the best and most exciting yet. The key now is to sustain this demand until all tickets for the Games are sold.”
Around 160,000 people have been allocated tickets in this first round, with more opportunities to buy next year. A further phase of ticket sales will happen in spring 2020, which will be opened up to the world and done on a first-come first-served basis.
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Medals made out of recycled metals and podiums created from upcycled waste plastic are also among the latest updates.
Electricity at all venues will be derived from 100% renewable energy, while every medal awarded will be made entirely from recycled metals.
The metal for the 5,000-odd gold, silver and bronze medals was extracted from 78,985 tons of small electronic devices donated to local authorities with 6.21 million mobile phones were collected by NTT Docomo shops.
Rio 2016 and Vancouver 2010 used some recycled metal from electric devices, but Tokyo will be the first time this has been done completely.
Meanwhile, the podiums have been created using waste plastic, donated by Japanese citizens and collected from the ocean.
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Lucy is an experienced news journalist, reporter and presenter. Since joining the Horse & Hound team in 2015, Lucy has reported from major global sporting events including the Tokyo Paralympic Games and multiple European Championships, as well as Badminton, Burghley and London, to name a few. She has covered current affairs and sports news across the full spectrum of equestrian disciplines and racing, as well as human and equine welfare, industry news and court cases.