"Doping is to Sport What Criminality is to Society."

During the waning moments of NBC’s Olympic coverage, Bob Costas interviewed International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge. Though their conversation touched on a variety of sporting topics, it was Rogge’s honest and pragmatic answer on the subject of doping and the credibility of athletic performances that left me wondering if it was even realistic to think that the sport of cycling might ever be clean.

Costas: As we speak, five athletes have been disqualified for doping violations here. Another couple of dozen were caught by their own countries and disqualified before coming to the Olympics. In fairness, the IOC administers very tough drug testing. More sophisticated, more frequent than ever. You're saving the samples now for eight years so you can catch cheaters after the fact. But there are skeptics. You know, they'll say no matter how hard you try; the cheaters will always be ahead of the police. So, how confident are you that the performances we see here are credible?

Rogge: As credible as possible. Let me be very clear. The fight against doping was my number one priority when I started as president of the International Olympic Committee. We have stepped up the doping test from 2,500 in Sydney to 4,500 now, and also you described all the other measures that we have taken. We can say that we've...it's never been so difficult to cheat as today. Does this mean that there is absolutely no athlete running around doping? Of course not. We have to be realistic. Doping is to sport what criminality is to society. You will never have a society without criminality. You will always need judges, prisons and laws. And we'll always need to fight against doping. But it is our sacred duty to protect the athletes and their health and the credibility of the competition. To bring it down to the lowest possible level, and that is what we are doing.

There are many among us who have lobbied, clamored, and even raged for the sport of cycling to "get" clean. But for what purpose?

Is it because we, like Jacques Rogge, believe it is our "sacred duty to protect the athletes" from themselves or is our desire for a cleaner sport a bit more selfish. Many of us sat idly by with rose-colored glasses when the sport of cycling cannibalized itself with rampant doping. The unbelievable speeds, the inhuman performances, even the nationalism amazed and entertained us. But in the end we were all made to look like fools.

Now, websites and cycling pundits have urged us to "take back" what was lost. Agencies, committees, and even teams have gone to extremes, testing and tracking their athletes' every movement, to insure that what we are witnessing is indeed real.

But to believe that doping, like crime, will cease to exist because of these measures is perhaps the bigger fallacy. After all, cyclists do not live nor do cycling events occur in a vacuum. The idealism of a perfect cycling world can only be met with shattering disappointment.

Instead, the void of cycling innocence lost needs to be filled by something more fundamental. Just as we once connected to those unbelievable performances because they made us believe in the unbridled potential of us all, we now need to tap into the guttural pain and suffering that we've all shared, and continue to share, on two wheels.

Because it is in that so called "bag of suffering" that cycling will find its way out of these troubled times. For within it is the powerful and bittersweet memory of that grand deception that will enable us to not only recognize forged performances but also drive us to make sure that those that seek to enhance their performance are deterred well before they are punished.