< Previous page

"That," said Donald, a former NCAA champion who finished second at the Tour of California prologue in February, "is going to be a pretty exciting day of racing."

Of course, it would be naive to think that performance-enhancing drugs can be totally stamped out. Every time someone develops an improved test to weed out the cheaters, some chemist in a back-room lab comes up with a new chemical or technique to beat the system.

Just look at blood doping, which Vaughters calls "by far the biggest problem in international cycling." Red blood cells are drawn from the body, frozen and re-injected just before a race to boost aerobic capacity and stamina -- critical advantages in this grueling sport.

So, Team Slipstream is doing a more advanced form of testing that keeps up with the vital "biomarkers" in each of its athletes, not just the chemicals in their body.

Team Slipstream contracted with a major laboratory to conduct the testing, so its athletes are never far from a place where they can give blood and urine. The results are sent to the Agency for Cycling Ethics, a group that also is working to clean up the sport. If something out of the ordinary is detected, Vaughters is notified.

While there have been no red flags so far, the team director said he would automatically pull one of his cyclists out of a race if a problem was detected and a follow-up test confirmed the result.

Often, there are perfectly understandable reasons that, say, an athlete's red blood cell count might be higher than normal. He could have chronic bronchitis. He could be dehydrated. Even so, he wouldn't be allowed to race under Team Slipstream's program. Once the cyclist's reading get back normal, he can go back to racing.

Of course, all this testing is costly. Vaughters estimates that his program will cost between $250,000 and $400,000 a year; for a larger team, such as Discovery Channel, it could run upward of a half-million dollars.

While that sounds daunting, Vaughters estimates it would be less than 5 percent of the total budget for the powerhouse teams -- a small price to pay for a sport that already has paid so much.

"We're basically changing the whole win-at-all-costs mentality," he said. "Of course, you can do the science and the testing. That's all well and good. But it starts at the core. We've got to realize that humans are humans, not machines."

< Previous page

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.