That may sound utopian. But it can work. Vaughters, who is now director of the U.S. cycling team Slipstream/Chipotle, has already started a program of extensive and regular in-house drug testing. “Remember, most of these guys are athletes, not criminals,” he says. “If they believe the rest are stopping [the doping] and feel it in the speed of the peloton, they will stop, too, with a great sigh of relief.”

Hope springs eternal. But with these changes I believe the psychology of the game can be shifted from defection to cooperation. If so, sports can return to the tradition of rewarding and celebrating excellence in performance, enhanced only by an athlete’s will to win.

   
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Michael Shermer (www.michael ­shermer.com) is a contributing editor for Scientific American, where he writes the regular Skeptic column. He is also a serious amateur cyclist, and in 1982 he was one of only four riders to compete in the first Race Across America (then called the Great American Bike Race). He finished third in that race, completing the 3,000-mile journey in just 10 days, 19 hours and 54 minutes. He is the author of a number of books, including two on the subject of cycling. His most recent book is The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics (Times Books, 2007). He is the founder and publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com).