Officials were forced to extend the deadline to purchase London 2012 Olympics tickets by over an hour last night following a surge in demand.

The website accepted sales until 01:00 on Wednesday, pushing the time limit forward from the original 23:59 Tuesday deadline.

Although organisers denied the site had crashed, it slowed around 22:30, but appeared to have been repaired by roughly 23:00.

“Some people experienced a temporary delay in accessing the Olympic ticketing site following a surge of applications around 22:30 this evening,” read a statement.

“This surge has now evened out and the system is working normally.”

There are 6.6 million tickets available in all, but about half will go to corporate and VIP guests.

Applications will be processed in May and June and those who have been successful will be notified by June 24th.

Tickets will be allocated by ballot.

City.Mobi

Also in Europe today, City.Mobi is celebrating the success of its new guide to London. 

City.Mobi offers the most comprehensive mobile travel guides available, with over 800 cities in 200 countries listed. Each is developed by the City.Mobi team to combine into a single global travel directory.

However, each city retains its own mobile identity via a dedicated domain. Already on offer are Brussels.Mobi, Paris.Mobi, Sanfrancisco.Mobi and Sydney.Mobi.

London.Mobi is the latest in this illustrious line up, offering click to call functionality – which means no scribbling down telephone numbers.

Most entries are also linked to websites where users can quickly access more detailed information if needed.

Other key features include information on accommodation, restaurants, attractions, entertainment, nightlife, shopping, and transport.

City.Mobi guides include user reviews and traveller utilities such as a translation guide, currency converter, news and local weather guide.