- Christophe Bassons
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Christophe Bassons Personal information Full name Christophe Bassons Born June 10, 1974
Mazamet, FranceTeam information Current team Retired Discipline Road Role Rider Professional team(s) 1996
1996–1998
1999
2000–2001Force Sud
Festina
Française des Jeux
Jean DelatourInfobox last updated on
August 7, 2009Christophe Bassons (born on 10 June 1974, Mazamet, France[1]) is a French former professional road racing cyclist whose career ended when he spoke out about doping in the Tour de France.
Contents
Origins
Christophe Bassons was born in Mazamet, in the Tarn department. He studied and qualified in civil engineering.[2] He began cycle-racing in 1991 in mountain biking.[1] He started racing on the road in 1992 and won the Tour du Tarn et Garonne in 1995. That same year he won the world military time-trial championship and became national time-trial champion. He turned professional in 1996 for Force Sud and then, when the team failed, for Festina, a watch and clock maker.
Doping
Bassons became known during the 1998 doping Festina scandal, when the discovery of a carload of drugs being driven to the team's riders in the Tour de France led to evidence that doping was widespread in the team. In September 1998, the newspaper France Soir published statements made to the police. Two riders, Armin Meier and Christophe Moreau, said Bassons was the only rider in the team not taking drugs.[2]
Jean-Luc Gatellier said in L'Équipe:
- It's true he's not one of them and he hasn't come out of the same mould. It's true that he refused to 'load the canon' (the pretty expression used by those who take EPO) these past years, it's true that Christophe Bassons doesn't belong to the family of cheats and the corrupted.[3]
Moreau's and Meier's court statement brought attention to a rider who had never acquired it through his racing. He wrote in Vélo, a French monthly, that riders who spoke out against quarterly medical checks imposed by the sports ministry after the Festina trial were hypocrites. He said: "That makes me laugh when I hear they're asking for changes to the tests. The truth, however, is that they are obliged to change their behaviour. They talk about 'two-speed cycling'[4] But me, for three years, I've been the second speed. They have ruined three years of my life as a racer and I never said anything."[5]
The interest that the Festina trial brought to him led to an invitation to write a column during the 1999 Tour for Le Parisien, a newspaper in the same corporate group as the Tour de France itself. Ian Austen wrote in Procycling:
- On the whole his columns were largely innocuous if entertaining looks at life in the peloton. If anything, he sometimes went out of his way to dispel doping rumours. After the stage into Blois, which passed at record average speed, Bassons warned readers: 'Don't get any ideas about the record speed. With a wind like we had, it's normal to ride this fast.' But two columns stuck out. After Lance Armstrong showed that not only had he recovered from cancer, he'd risen to the top of the pack, Bassons wrote that his performances had 'shocked' the peloton.
Bassons said Armstrong rode up alongside on the Alpe d'Huez stage to tell him "it was a mistake to speak out the way I do and he asked why I was doing it. I told him that I'm thinking of the next generation of riders. Then he said 'Why don't you leave, then?'"[6] Armstrong confirmed the story. On the main evening news on TF1, a national television station, Armstrong said: "His accusations aren't good for cycling, for his team, for me, for anybody. If he thinks cycling works like that, he's wrong and he would be better off going home."[7][8][9][10]
Bassons was shunned by other riders. Giving a television interview at St-Étienne, he said, a passing rider in his own team said: "Watch what you say!"[3][11] Bassons said: "I started feeling isolated. In the middle of 170 riders, that's a tough way to live."[11] Riders shunned him or at best nodded.[3] He cracked, saying he had not wanted to leave the race but his nerves could not stand it anymore.[3] He said:
- The [team doctor] comforted me. We often talk together about the problem of doping and we share the same ideas. I confided in him and I cried a little [j'ai chialé]. I got to sleep but a bit after midnight I could no longer sleep because of my worries. I went into the corridor, I phoned my coach, Antoine Vayer, and Pascale, my wife. At 5.30am I had my breakfast and I packed my case. I crossed with Marc[12] and he said I was letting down the team. He said a rider could leave the race if he cracked physically but he couldn't accept that one can crack mentally. I said goodbye to everyone but one rider didn't look at me and refused to shake my hand. That hurt.[3]
The reporter Jean-Michel Rouet wrote:
- Sometimes he was congratulated on his courage, as Daniel Baal, the president of the FFC[13] at the start at Sestrieres. But more often, others waved their fist [on le montrait le doigt], looked elsewhere, if they didn't just insult him. He has a few friends and a heap of enemies. His solitude was the living proof that nothing fundamental has changed in the morals of the milieu. Christophe Bassons died at the stake [est mort au bucher], burned by his passion. On official communiqués, he left two words: non partant.[14] The peloton had already forgotten rider number 152.[15]
The sports minister, Marie-George Buffet, said: "What a strange role reversal. Rather than fighting against doping, they're fighting its opponent." She wrote to him to sympathise, saying that it was time someone spoke out.[16]
Bassons' colleagues in the Française des Jeux team refused to share their prizes with him. Normally teams pool their winnings and share them out by the number of days a rider has survived the race. One rider, Xavier Jan, said: "Christophe Bassons rode only for himself and didn't at any time work for the overall good of the team." It had nothing to do with his comments about doping, he said.[17] Thierry Bourguignon, part of another team but earlier a member with Bassons of Force Sud, confirmed: "I was the only one to talk to Bassons... He doesn't listen to anyone. Bassons is an individualist. Even in a race he doesn't easily lend a hand. He rides for himself."[18]
Bassons raced again, riding in Germany and Belgium. He said: "I felt a lot of tension. Some didn't talk to me. Others pretended nothing had happened, which is worse. Some say it's just youthful folly, but I feel more adult than them. I'm not the only clean rider but there aren't many who can say 'I don't take drugs'. For most riders, their health is the last of their concerns."[19]
He moved to a smaller team, Jean Delatour, and then stopped racing.
After cycling
In 2000 he published his autobiography Positif and in 2001 he qualified as a sports teacher and began teaching. He now works for the ministry of youth and sport at Bordeaux, in charge of drug tests.[20]
Palmarès
- 1999
- 1 stage in the Dauphiné Libéré
References
- ^ a b http://www.cyclisme-dopage.com/portraits/bassons.htm
- ^ a b Procycling, UK, undated cutting
- ^ a b c d e L'Équipe, 17 July 1999
- ^ A belief that medical checks on only French riders would stop their taking drugs but leave those of other nations to continue.
- ^ Vélo, France, June 1999
- ^ http://www.humanite.fr/1999-07-17_Sports_Le-coup-de-blues-de-Christophe-Bassons
- ^ Cited, L'Équipe, 17 July 1999
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ (L'Equipe 17 July 1999, cited Sport & Vie n°6 de Sept/Oct 1999)
- ^ a b Procycling, undated cutting
- ^ Marc Madiot, manager of Bassons' team, La Française des Jeux, who Bassons said had warned him against talking of doping
- ^ Fédération Française de Cyclisme, the national governing body
- ^ Did not start.
- ^ L'Équipe, 17 July 2009
- ^ Libération, France, 26 July 1999
- ^ Procycling, UK, 2000
- ^ L'Équipe, 19 July 1999
- ^ Procycling, UK, August 1999
- ^ Bassons
External links
- Christophe Bassons profile at Cycling Archives
- a page on Bassons
Categories:- Living people
- 1974 births
- French cyclists
- People from Tarn
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