The Beijing Paralympic Games not free of doping was a pity, said the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) president Philip Craven on Wednesday.

The IPC reported three doping cases, all from the sport of powerlifting and another positive case under the national Paralympic committee's control came to light during Games.

"The winter Games were free of it in Turino Games completely. So we are not happy that there are still three positive tests. I don't think that we are going away and laughing at this and saying that was a pretty good Games in the doping point of view," said Craven.

"Those three tests are something that we don't want and we will fight to catch the cheats if they keep on showing on the Games even if it's only the three of them," he said.

Pakistani powerlifter Naveed Ahmed Butt became the first to fail the doping test at the Games. Facourou Sissoko of Mali and Liudmyla Osmanova of Ukraine, both powerlifting competitors, were also expelled from the Paralympics after testing positive for steroids.

Another doping case was from German wheelchair basketball player Ahmet Coskun who was kicked out of the Games as traces of finasteride were found in his urine sample taken on August 23 but it was not an IPC test.

The German National Paralympic Committee announced the positive result and withdrew the player from the Games.

Craven said all three doping cases from the Games were found out in out-of-competition tests and the low number proved that the program was effective in the fight against doping.

"Each of them is out of competition. To date, we haven't had one in-competition doping case," he said. "We think that what have been put in place here with great cooperation with BOCOG has showed that the Paralympic Games are near enough free of doping."

About 1,100 tests both out-of-competition and in-competition would be carried out among some 4,000 athletes during the September 6-17 Games.

"We will work even harder on the education. We worked very hard on the education of our sports for the last four years. I think we can say that we are having some success but we want more success," Craven said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 17, 2008)