More than 1.19 million tickets for the Beijing Paralympics have been sold or given away by September 1, a Games official said Tuesday morning.

The figure account for about 72 percent of the total 1.65 million Paralympics tickets on sale, according to Zhang Qiuping, director with the Paralympic Games Department of the BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games).

Among that 1.19 million tickets, about 300,000 were free tickets for students, disabled and common citizens, said Zhang.

He said the BOCOG had made more seats available at popular sites such as the National Stadium and the National Aquatics Center (Bird's Nest and Water Cube) to which the tickets had been sold out more than a week ago.

The newly-added tickets were available for sale on Tuesday at accredited Bank of China outlets and on the official ticketing website of the BOCOG.

Zhang, however, refused to reveal the number of newly-added tickets.

The official booking site was jammed because of the overwhelming demand. By Tuesday noon, the newly-added tickets for the Water Cube were also sold out, while a number of tickets for the Bird's Nest were still available.

(Xinhua News Agency September 1, 2008)