Go for Gold.

The race for 2012s Olympic Games will have to wait for starters orders as London’s Olympics were beset by tech-glitches.

With only 500 days to go before the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the United States' authorized Olympic ticket seller CoSport has kicked off ticket sales. The London 2012 website was supposed to allow customers to select their event and price choices for the first time today, but was there a malfunction on the site?

With Visa being the only way to pay online for the 6.6 million tickets and with its six-week purchasing period till April 26th to apply it seems like sights were set a little too high for sports fans nationwide. Prospective buyers with Visa cards which expire before the end of August found the website could not process their orders.

The team behind 2012 stressed there was 'no glitch' with the ticketing website, which went live today, despite the fact that many logging on could not finish ordering tickets. London 2012 told press that the website and ticketing guide clearly states that in order to process your application, Visa cards must expire no earlier than August 2011. Officials say this is because while people are applying now for tickets, they will be paying for them between May 10th and June 10th and will need their card to be valid during this period.

A spokesman for the Games added: 'What Visa is now trying to do is move that date slightly so those that expire in July will also be able to apply. We had to have a cut off date when the card would be valid and we had to have an application period to apply for tickets.'

The advice to these people was that they could still actively make their choices for which games they wanted to see but would be unable to currently finish the process on the system. The spokesman added “there is nothing wrong with the site and the chance of getting a ticket is not lost provided applications are made before the deadline.”

Even time wasn’t on London 2012s side as official Olympic timekeeper Omega confirmed the countdown clock has stopped only a day after it was unveiled in Trafalgar Square.

The clock was the centrepiece of celebrations to mark 500 days to go to the 2012 Games, which it counts down in days, hours, minutes and seconds. The clock, which is 21ft high, 16ft long and weighs around four tonnes, took 10 people two days to assemble.

A statement from the company read: 'We are obviously very disappointed that the clock has suffered this technical issue. The Omega London 2012 countdown clock was developed by our experts and fully tested ahead of the launch in Trafalgar Square. We are currently looking into why this happened and expect to have the clock functioning as normal as soon as possible.'

But despite the minor faux-pars, London 2012 chairman Lord Coe promised the 'daddy of all ticketing strategies' was in place to cope with demand for the events, which range from boxing to beach volleyball.  Ticket prices vary from sport to sport and the main events such as Athletics, which will be held in the Olympic Park, have been priced as high as £725. Tickets for the gymnastics at North Greenwich range from £20-£450 and similarly with the swimming at the Olympics Park Aquatics Centre.

Prices for adults range from £20 to £2,012 depending on the sport, date and seat. Ticket sales are expected to total £500 million.

So, with time ticking away the race is on for London 2012 to prepare to host the next Olympic Games. The countdown has begun: 500 days.

-ZB