Around 4,500 dope tests will be conducted during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, rising up by 25 percent from Athens Games 2004, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) said on Wednesday.

"As part of its zero tolerance approach to fighting doping, the International Olympic Committee has decided to increase the number of tests by a large amount," BOCOG executive vice president Yang Shu'an told reporters when attending an exhibition themed "The Olympic Movement and Anti-doping Drive".

"Final numbers are to be confirmed but are expected to be around 4,500, a 25 percent increase on Athens 2004," he added.

More than 3,500 tests were conducted during the Athens Games, also a 25 percent rise on the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney.

The exhibition, which will run through Saturday, reviews a number of doping cases in the past years and provides video display of anti-doping test process as well as computer inter-action means for visitors to test their knowledge about the anti-doping combat.

It is the first of its kind proposed by Beijing to target a wider audience instead of a number of specialists in the history of the Olympic Games. Similar exhibitions are expected to be organized in 2007 and 2008 in various parts of China.

(China Daily January 18, 2007)