Ivan Basso

Ivan Basso
	Ivan Basso at the Critérium du Dauphiné 2011
To person
Date of birth	26th November 1977 (age 42)
nation	Italy
discipline	Street
End of career	2015
doping
2006	Fuentes doping scandal
Team (s)
1998 ; 1999 ; 2000 ; 2001–2003 ; 2004–2006 ; 2007 ; 2008–2014 ; 2015	Asics-CGA (Stagiaire) ; Riso Scotti-Vinavil ; Amica Chips-Tacconi Sport ; Fassa Bortolo ; CSC ; Discovery Channel ; Liquigas / Cannondale ; Tinkoff-Saxo
Most important successes
	Giro d'Italia 2006 , 2010 ;
	Last updated: April 14, 2020

Ivan Basso (born November 26, 1977 in Gallarate , Varese province ) is a former Italian cyclist . He is the winner of the 2006 Giro d'Italia . After being suspended for two years for doping in 2007 , he won the Giro d'Italia again in 2010 . In October 2015, he announced his retirement from cycling.

Career

First years

After Ivan Basso was road world champion of the U23 at the 1998 World Championships , at the end of the season he rode as a stagiaire with the cycling team Asics-CGA 1999 he became a professional cyclist with Riso Scotti-Vinavil .

His first place in the front of a "Grand Tour" he achieved in 2002 as a member of the Fassa Bortolo team in the Tour de France 2002 , which he finished in eleventh place and won the youth championship. At the Tour de France 2003 he reached the finish in Paris in seventh place overall.

In 2004, Basso moved to Team CSC of the 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis . He won the 12th stage from Castelsarrasin to La Mongie in the 2004 Tour de France . He finished third in the overall standings after being intercepted by Andreas Klöden in the final individual time trial .

Basso took on the pink jersey of the leader on the first difficult mountain stage of the 2005 Giro d'Italia . Due to an upset stomach two days later, however, he lost more than 40 minutes in another mountain stage and thus the overall lead. After recovering, he won the 17th and 18th stages - a mountain stage and a time trial. In the subsequent Tour de France , he was able to exceed last year's result and finally finished in second place behind the 2012 arrears for doping disqualified Lance Armstrong . The first place was not filled again, so that Basso remained second overall.

In 2006, Basso won the Giro d'Italia for the first time . He conquered the pink jersey on the first mountain finish of the 8th stage and increased his lead as second in the individual time trial of the 11th stage. He also dominated the difficult Alpine stages, of which he won two. In the overall standings he was 9:18 minutes ahead of overall runner-up José Enrique Gutiérrez .

Doping Investigation and Ineligibility

After a list of 58 suspicious drivers became known shortly before the 2006 Tour de France as part of the investigation into the Fuentes doping scandal , all of the drivers named, including Basso, were excluded from the start after an agreement by the team managers. Basso, who denied any involvement in the scandal, was suspended from his CSC team .

In October 2006 the National Olympic Committee of Italy (CONI) announced that no doping case would be opened against Basso. Shortly thereafter, the Italian Cycling Federation also closed its investigations.

In April 2007 new allegations against Basso became known, which confirmed the previously denied contact with Fuentes. On April 24, 2007, Ivan Basso was suspended by Team Discovery after new allegations related to the Fuentes doping affair emerged. In May, Basso admitted working with sports medicine specialist Fuentes. He agreed to help clarify the doping scandal. On the other hand, he denied at a press conference that he had ever doped. He only intended such manipulations, but did not carry them out. On June 15, 2007, the Italian cycling federation FCI banned him for two years.

Comeback and end of career

After his suspension expired, Basso joined the Liquigas team in 2008 and made his comeback at the Japan Cup on October 26, 2008 . In 2009 he competed in the first Giro d'Italia since his suspension, which he finished fourth overall.

At the Giro d'Italia 2010 he repeated his overall victory from 2006. He won the mountain finish of the 15th stage on Monte Zoncolan and took over the Maglia Rosa on the 19th stage from the Spaniard David Arroyo , who was second overall with 1:51 minutes behind Bassos Team mate Vincenzo Nibali was who finished the tour 2:37 minutes behind.

Basso finished seventh in the 2011 Tour de France and fifth in the Giro d'Italia in 2012 , but was not able to build on the successes of previous years. For the 2015 season he moved to the Tinkoff-Saxo team , where he was supposed to support Alberto Contador as an assistant . He took part in the 2015 Tour de France up to stage 9 . He then had to leave the tour because after a minor accident he was diagnosed with cancer on his testicles in the hospital .

After his recovery, Basso started training again, but announced his resignation at the presentation of the Giro d'Italia 2016 in October 2015: “Every athlete knows that the light does not always shine brightly in his career. [...] It is the sign of a wise athlete to know when the time has come to turn it off. ”It is planned that Basso will move to the management of Tinkoff-Saxo .