China's CCTV5, the country's main sport channel, will become a 24-hour Olympics channel from January 1st, 2008, China Central Television (CCTV) President, Zhao Huayong has said.

Zhao said preparation works including promotion, technical upgrades, logistics, multimedia and marketing has almost finished for the CCTV5 Olympic reporting group.

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will open in August 8th and close on August 24th. During the 17 days of competition, 2500 hours of sport programmes will air. That is 1,000 more hours of broadcasting than during the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Other CCTV channels and digital TV channels will cooperate with CCTV5 to provide a colourful sport broadcast to the world.