Berlin - Suspected doping cases are being investigated in cycling and cross-country skiing, an anti-doping forum was told on Thursday.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) fears more doping cases as blood profiles of cyclists are evaluated, its president, Pat McQuaid, said.

Meanwhile the international ski federation FIS is examining five suspicious blood profiles by cross-country skiers, Swedish doping specialist Bengt Saltin said.

He said it was hoped to release the results of the evaluation within the next four weeks.

McQuaid said a few of the profiles in biological passports introduced by the UCI this year show "irregularities" which could point to the use of banned substances or methods.

The UCI's lawyers were looking at the cases, he said.

The biological passports record and chart blood and urine levels and are seen as an effective new weapon in the fight against doping. Around 800 cyclists are already in possession of the passport.

FIS introduced the passports after the 2002 winter Games in Salt Lake City.

McQuaid also criticized German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF for their decision to end live broadcasting of the Tour de France in the light of continuing doping revelations.

He said the decision "sends the wrong message" and was "not fair or helpful to the organizers and German cycling."

The Berlin anti-doping forum heard Saltin call for a radical rethink on doping controls, including more training controls.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is "stupid" to think that 1,000 more tests at the Beijing Games over the 2004 Athens Games was a success, he said.

"If these controls had been between seasons we would have had 1,000 positive tests," Saltin said.

It was naive and a waste of resources to test during the competition phase when "only amphetamines or diuretics at the most are being taken to cover up (doping)."

Track and field athletes "have to be controlled in the winter, the skiers in summer training," he added.

Saltin criticized the international athletic federation IAAF and the world anti-doping agency WADA for "insufficient and ineffective" control methods in the fight against doping.

The way forward was to use the combination of biological passports and "intelligent training controls," he said.

Meanwhile, disgraced Austrian cyclist Bernhard Kohl claimed in his hearing with the Austrian anti-doping agency on Monday that "half of the peloton" in cycling is using CERA, the third generation of the blood booster EPO, according to a report by the internet site cyclingnews.com.

Kohl, who finished third at this summer's Tour de France, was banned for two years by the Austrian anti-doping agency after being one of several cyclists from the Tour tested positive for CERA. dpa