THE 2006 Winter Olympics is winding down, offering an opportunity for the world community to look back on the event and reflect. Drug testing, for instance, was an ongoing element of the games, bringing about intrigue that included Italian drug testers who surprised athletes by posing as fans. This demonstrates why it's time for the Olympics, whose motto is ''Faster, Higher, Stronger," to lift the ban on human enhancement in sports.

The long list of banned substances includes insulin and beta-blockers, and this year the International Olympic Committee aimed to increase testing by 72 percent. It would make more sense to give athletes permission to use whatever methods they choose to make themselves the best they can be.

Ordinary citizens can avail themselves of such enhancements as pharmaceuticals, implants, and gene therapy, so it seems Luddite to maintain restrictions on athletes. While some might think that allowing enhancements violates the spirit of the games and offends the principle of fairness, neither objection is convincing.

If the spirit of the games is about hard work, world community, and a celebration of the human spirit, enhancement will amplify such values. That is, in an enhancement-friendly Olympics, athletes would be responsible for making the right choice to improve their ability, just as they currently do with the equipment they use. Hard work, world gatherings, and the triumph of humans against the odds would not go away. Arguably, the greatness of humanity would be elevated as Olympians become stronger, run faster, and jump higher. Indeed, it has already begun to happen without anyone noticing.

Athletes are better competitors today than they were in ancient Greece because they have the benefits of better nutrition, laser eye surgery, and technological tools to measure and improve their metrics. For instance, cyclist Lance Armstrong and other Olympians have been known to sleep in hypobaric chambers that simulate altitudes of up to 9,000 feet in order to raise red blood cell levels. While seemingly natural sounding, the knowledge and technology to enhance the body in this way is far from natural and probably would have been considered an unfair advantage by the original Olympians.

Second, if anyone thinks that the Olympics is ''fair" in the sense that athletes start from an equal point, it might be worth considering that the wealthy and individual-focused United States holds the record of Olympic gold medals: 907 since 1896. The second best country in those standings was the USSR (from 1952-88) with 395, and we know that a good deal of that success was based on intense training backed up with resources from an authoritarian government.

Do people from the United States and the former Soviet Union have some sort of natural athletic talent that the rest of the world lacks? That's an unlikely scenario, and the rational way to explain the huge divergence in results is differences in culture, wealth, and focus. Since it's clear that all athletes do not start from an equal basis, they should be allowed to make up for their deficiencies. That's what humans have been doing for centuries, and it's the quest for never-ending self-improvement that is the true spirit of human character.

Some may object to the idea that a number of athletes might use such drugs as steroids that have long-term damaging effects on the body and are currently illegal to abuse. One response to this, other than the obvious that many athletes are already taking steroids, is that there's a real possibility that if enhancement opportunities were transparent and accepted, better, safer, alternatives to steroids would be offered. Already, scientists have figured out how to increase red blood cell levels through gene therapy -- a much safer way to regulate levels than, say, through using the drug EPO.

From the moment humans discovered fire, they have been using technology to advance themselves. With technology accelerating at a break-neck speed and enhancement tools widely available, it's time for the Olympic Games to let go of its quasi-paternalistic mindset and let athletes choose what is best for them. That way, Olympic officials wouldn't have to masquerade as Hollywood stars in order to surprise highly-driven competitors.