Cyclists will face four-year bans next season if found guilty of serious doping offenses.

International Cycling Union president Pat McQuaid plans to double the current penalty of two years in "aggravating circumstances."

The longer bans would be given in cases like those of Bernhard Kohl, Riccardo Ricco and Stefan Schumacher. They tested positive for the banned endurance booster CERA during the Tour de France last July.

"I have said before that I would like to see them out of the sport for good," McQuaid said in an interview published Wednesday on the Web site of Cycling News magazine. "However, we are obliged to follow the world anti-doping code, and that is what the UCI will do."

Later Wednesday, Kohl admitted he used CERA because he felt "incredibly huge" pressure to perform.

"I succumbed to temptation because the pressure on me to succeed was incredibly huge," the 26-year-old rider said at a news conference at Vienna's international airport.

Kohl, who finished third at the Tour de France, said he won't appeal, even though he faces a two-year suspension from international competition. Kohl was dropped from his Silence-Lotto team.

Four-year bans are allowed under the World Anti-Doping Agency's revised code, which takes effect Jan. 1. The code was approved last November in Madrid, Spain.

"There is a bit more flexibility in it, and we can go up to a four-year ban in the cases of something regarded as willful cheating," McQuaid said. "Considering that these guys were given the product and then went and took it for the Tour de France, it would be very much classified as willful cheating."

Kohl, who finished third at the Tour, faces a two-year ban from the Austrian cycling federation. Continued...