AIGLE, Switzerland — 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."

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

"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.

Ricco, who won twice in the mountain stages before being withdrawn from the Tour, was banned for two years this month by the Italian Olympic Committee.

Schumacher was a teammate and roommate of Kohl during the Tour and won both time trials. The German federation has begun investigating.

Schumacher and Kohl tested positive when samples were examined a second time this month. A new blood test had been certified to search for CERA, a third generation form of the established blood-boosting drug EPO.

A fourth rider — Italy's Leonardo Piepoli, who won the Tour's 10th stage — also tested positive. He faces a hearing next week before his country's Olympic committee.