BEIJING, CHINA - TICKET sales for the Beijing Olympics again ran into problems on Monday, despite guarantees that the online system had been repaired after an earlier foul-up led to the dismissal of the ticket centre's director last year.

A total of 1.38 million tickets were to be released in the third round of ticket sales that began on Monday for 16 sports, including boxing, soccer, baseball, beach volleyball and wrestling.

But online chat files and blog comments showed that ticket buyers were having problems completing purchases.

A message reading, 'The system is under maintenance. Please visit the page later' appeared on the screen. And the website kept directing users back to the login page, and finally showed a message apologising for not being able to process the purchase.

'It's just frustrating and a waste of time,' said one person who tried numerous times to buy tickets before giving up.

Officials at the Beijing Organising Committee of the Olympic Games had no immediate comment.

The former director of the Beijing Olympic Ticketing Centre was sacked in November after the online system collapsed due to overwhelming demand almost immediately after the second round of sales began.

In the first three hours of the October sale, the site received 20 million hits, BOCOG had said. As a result of the system crash, only 43,000 of the 1.85 million tickets reserved for the second round were allocated.

BOCOG had promised there would be no repeat of problems that had marred previous ticket sales.

Two-thirds of the seven million tickets available to the public have been sold.

Last month, organisers unveiled for the first time the design for the tickets, which have many high-tech features to prevent fraud and copying. -- REUTERS