A ticketing staff displays sample tickets for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing April 23, 2008. The tickets, with the "lucky cloud" and the Bird's Nest designs will go on sale for the third round?starting from May 5.

A total of 1.38 million tickets will be put on sale for 16 sports, including athletics, boxing, basketball, and soccer. Each individual buyer is allowed to purchase no more than six tickets - three tickets each for two sports sessions.

Chinese residents also have the possibility of buying six more tickets.

"If you order six tickets on the first day of this (third) round, you can buy more tickets several days later as long as you have paid the former six tickets," explained Zhu Yan, the ticketing director of BOCOG.

Ticket will be sold on a "first come, first served" basis at Bank of China outlets and on the official ticketing website.

"There are roughly 100 days to go before the Games open. We don't have enough time for a lottery draw," said Zhu.

He promised the meltdown of the booking system, which disrupted the earlier round of ticket sales would not happen again.

"I have confidence in the system because the ticketing sponsors have made a lot of improvements," he said.

The design for the tickets was also unveiled on Wednesday. It has drawn on the National Stadium, known as the Bird's Nest, and the lucky cloud as the main visual elements, said Zhu.

"We have adopted a series of anti-counterfeiting technologies in the process of designing the tickets. It is almost impossible to create fake tickets," he said.