Ivan Basso

Basso at the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine
Personal information
Nickname	Ivan the Terrible The Smiling Assassin
Born	(1977-11-26) November 26, 1977 (age 34) Gallarate, Italy
Height	1.83 m (6.0 ft)
Weight	70 kg (150 lb; 11 st)
Team information
Current team	Liquigas-Cannondale
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	GC Contender
Amateur team(s)
1998	GS San Pietro GS Gornatese Zalf-Euromobil-Fior Asics (stagiaire)
Professional team(s)
1999–2000 2001–2003 2004–2006 2007 2008–	Riso Scotti Fassa Bortolo Team CSC Discovery Channel Liquigas
Major wins
Giro d'Italia General classification (2006, 2010) 8 Stages Tour de France Young rider Classification (2002) 1 Stage Stage Races Danmark Rundt (2005) Critérium International (2006) Giro del Trentino (2009) Single-Day Races and Classics Giro dell'Emilia (2004)
Infobox last updated on 4 January 2012

Ivan Basso (born 26 November 1977 in Gallarate, Province of Varese) is an Italian professional road bicycle racer who is currently racing with UCI ProTeam Liquigas-Cannondale. Basso, nicknamed Ivan the Terrible,^[1] is among the best mountain riders in the professional field in the 21st century, and is considered one of the strongest stage race riders. He is a double winner of the Giro d'Italia, having won the 2006 edition and the 2010 edition of the Italian Grand Tour whilst riding for Team CSC in 2006 and for Liquigas in 2010. However, in 2007 Basso admitted he was planning to use doping and was suspended for two years. His suspension ended on October 24, 2008, and he returned to racing two days later in the Japan Cup, where he placed a close third behind Damiano Cunego and Giovanni Visconti.^[2]

Biography[link]

He was born in Gallarate, in the province of Varese in Lombardy. There he grew up next door to Claudio Chiappucci, a former three-time stage winner in the Tour de France who was suspended for two years after being proven guilty of doping several times.

As an amateur, he finished second in the 1995 junior World Championships and his first big result was winning the U-23 World Championships in 1998. In his youth he fiercely competed with fellow Italian riders Giuliano Figueras and especially Danilo Di Luca who proclaimed he would have won the U-23 World Championship himself had it not been for the team tactics.^[3] Before Basso could turn professional, his parents wanted to see him finish his Technical Geometry studies. He turned professional with Davide Boifava's Riso Scotti-Vinavil team in 1999, where he rode his first Giro d'Italia. He did not finish the three-week race, but he made it a priority to win it some day.^[1] In 2000, with the team now called Amica Chips-Tacconi Sport, he won his first professional victories in the 2000 Regio-Tour.

Promising results[link]

In 2001, he moved to Fassa Bortolo under the guidance of sporting director Giancarlo Ferretti. He scored several notable victories in 2001, and he made his Tour de France debut in the 2001 edition. His attack on the Bastille Day stage prompted a five man break-away which rode for the victory, but Basso crashed on a mountain descent and was forced to abandon the race.

His next two years were devoid of significant wins, even though he had promising rides in the Tour de France. In the 2002 edition of the Tour de France, Basso finished 11th overall and won the white jersey, the award presented to the best-placed rider in the general classification under the age of 25.

Tour 2003: Basso during stage 12 (ITT)

He impressed again in the 2003 Tour, finishing seventh overall in spite of receiving little help from his Fassa Bortolo team-mates who, after dedicating their efforts in the first part of the race to help Alessandro Petacchi win four stages, had to pull out due to food poisoning, leaving only two riders to help Basso. Despite his good results as the best placed Italian rider in the Tour de France, he was behind fellow Italian teammate Dario Frigo in the Fassa Bortolo pecking order for the biggest race in Italy, the Giro.^[1] After the promising start to his Fassa Bortolo career, Basso's relationship with Ferretti turned sour. Basso failed to respond well to the management methods of the "iron sergeant" who thought Basso did not win enough races.

Apart from the individual time trial stages, Basso had only lost around a single minute to winner Lance Armstrong in the 2003 Tour, and he was not short of new team offers. Despite strong rumors sending him to team U.S. Postal Service,^[3] Ivan Basso moved to Team CSC for the 2004 season, under guidance of team manager Bjarne Riis. At Team CSC, Basso was to fill the role as team captain, which Tyler Hamilton had left vacant at the Danish outfit, with the main aim to be a challenger in the Tour de France. Ivan Basso's weakness was the time trial and before the 2004 season he and teammate Carlos Sastre trained in a wind tunnel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to improve their aerodynamic positioning on the bike. The time trial skill of Ivan Basso was one of the main points of improvements over the next years.

Heir apparent[link]

Tour 2004: Basso (left) and Armstrong at Basso's stage 12 win at La Mongie.

Basso looked impressive in the 2004 Tour de France, winning stage 12 ahead of eventual winner Lance Armstrong, his first victory since 2001. His overall time was hurt by relatively poor time trial results: he only finished 8th on the stage 16 time trial up the mountain Alpe d'Huez, where he was caught and passed by Armstrong, and 6th in the stage 19 time trial. In all, he lost a combined 5 minutes and 13 seconds in the two stages. His time loss on the last time trial effectively sent Basso down to third place behind Andreas Klöden, and Basso finished 6:40 behind overall winner Armstrong. He ended the season, participating with the Italian national team in the 2004 World Championships in Verona, helping fellow Italian Luca Paolini get a Bronze Medal. In the off-season, Team CSC was in a financial struggle. Even as Bjarne Riis let riders who received superior offers from other teams leave, Basso did not move to team Discovery Channel even though an economically more lucrative contract was proposed.^[1]

January 2005 saw the death of Basso's mother, who died after battling cancer. Basso went on to focus on the 2005 Giro d'Italia, in her memory, as his main aim for that season. By both focusing on winning the Giro and the Tour, he was going against the trend of only aiming for one big race a season, a tactic most notably employed successfully by Lance Armstrong.^[4] Basso wore the leader's jersey, the maglia rosa, in the Giro until severe stomach problems caused him to lose the lead on stage 13. He lost another 40 minutes during the 14th stage, a mountain stage which included the Stelvio Pass, and thus effectively ended his bid for overall honors. No longer dangerous to the other main riders, Basso decided to continue in the race with the objective of winning individual stages. He did manage to achieve this goal at stage 17, a mountain stage. He also won the 18th stage, a time trial, ahead of team mate David Zabriskie, demonstrating the improvement he had made in this area.

Tour 2005: Basso after stage 20 (ITT). He finished 5th on the day and remained 2nd overall on the GC.

At the 2005 Tour de France, he started out comparatively weakly on stage 10, the first mountain stage of the race, where he trailed the front group by a minute. But for the rest of the race, Ivan Basso was once again the only rider to keep up with the race leader Lance Armstrong in the mountains, and on occasion he tried to pressure the eventual winner by going on the attack. Basso was still weaker in the time trials, although he had improved significantly when compared to 2004. He lost a collective 3:47 over two time trial stages, as Basso placed second overall in the Tour, 4:40 behind Lance Armstrong. During the 2005 Tour de France, Basso signed a new three-year contract with Team CSC.

2006 Giro d'Italia[link]

Following his overall rank of 28th in the 2005 Giro, Basso returned to the Giro in 2006 with the intention to win. Following a good performance in the stage 1 time trial, Basso and his CSC teammates won the 5th stage, a team time trial. Basso's first solo stage victory came on the 8th stage, the first mountaintop finish of the Giro, where he countered an attack by Damiano Cunego and rode to the finish by himself. That victory also allowed him to gain enough time on his rivals to put him in the maglia rosa leader's jersey for the first time in the 2006 Giro, a jersey which he would hold on to for the remaining 13 stages.

Stage 11 was a long and flat^[5] individual time trial where Basso finished in second place, losing only to former two-time World Time Trial Championship winner Jan Ullrich, beating riders like the Italian national time trial champion Marco Pinotti. During the last week of the 2006 Giro, Basso became truly dominant, as he consistently beat his main rivals for the General Classification, and won stages 16 and 20 along the way. His victory in Stage 20, where he rode to a solo victory on the final ascent into Aprica after riding away from rival Gilberto Simoni, was notable when he, already sure of his victory, pulled out a picture of his newly born son Santiago, and held it aloft as he crossed the finish line. Santiago Basso had been born the previous day, and Basso had not yet seen his son in the flesh, having been given the picture only hours before the stage started. When rival Simoni rolled across the line over a minute behind Basso, he was clearly upset at being beaten and made a remark that Basso's dominance at that year's Giro was "extra-terrestrial." ^[6] Basso eventually finished 9 minutes 18 seconds up on the second placed rider, José Enrique Gutiérrez, the largest margin of victory in the Giro d'Italia since 1965. After the last stage of the 2006 Giro d'Italia, Basso declared that he would continue along his pre-season plan to also ride the 2006 Tour de France.

Operación Puerto and the 2006 Tour de France[link]

On 30 June 2006, the management of the Tour de France announced at a press conference that a number of riders, including Ivan Basso, would not be riding in the 2006 Tour de France due to rumours of blood doping stemming from the Operación Puerto investigation in Spain. According to the investigation, Basso was allegedly given blood doping by the Dr. Fuentes in a Spanish clinic. No formal charges had been raised, but following an agreement between the managers of all the ProTour teams, any rider under suspicion of doping would not be allowed to start in ProTour races. This forced CSC to remove Basso from their squad for the 2006 Tour.

Speculation in the Italian press suggested that should Basso not be banned he would be joining the Discovery Channel team. Team CSC described these suggestions as just rumours.^[7] Later, CSC manager Bjarne Riis was reported stating that it was unlikely that Basso could return to CSC without proving he had no contact with Dr. Fuentes, as Basso's contract specified that he could receive no outside medical assistance. Riis conceded that it might be impossible for Basso to prove beyond doubt. Rumours also talked about Basso moving to Team Milram or Barloworld (a non-ProTour team).^[8] The Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) proceedings commenced in late August 2006.

From CSC to Team Discovery Channel[link]

On 18 October 2006, Team CSC announced that his contract had been terminated by mutual consent.^[9] On 27 October 2006, Basso was acquitted for any involvement in the Operation Puerto events by the committee, due to insufficient evidence.^[10]

On 9 November 2006 Ivan Basso announced he was joining Lance Armstrong's former team, Discovery Channel. The announcement was made in Austin, Texas, and Basso joined the team on 3 December 2006 for the first unofficial training camp. Basso rode for Levi Leipheimer during the 2007 Tour of California,^[11] and also raced Tirreno–Adriatico, where he crashed.^[12]

Puerto case reopened[link]

On 24 April 2007, Basso was suspended by Discovery Channel when the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) reopened his case. On 30 April 2007 Team Discovery Channel announced that Basso would be released from his contract. Basso requested to leave the team citing "personal reasons related to the re-opened investigation by the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI)." Basso met with the General Manager of Team Discovery Channel, Bill Stapleton, and Johan Bruyneel, the Team Director, and the two agreed to allow Basso to leave the team.^[13] While still claiming to never have actually engaged in blood doping, Basso admitted contacting Dr. Fuentes' clinic with the intention to engage in blood doping.^[14]

Basso appeared before the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) on 2 May 2007.^[15] On 7 May 2007, Basso admitted his involvement with the drug scandal to the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI).^[16] In a later press conference he stated it was "attempted doping", and that while he had not actually undergone doping, he was "fully aware that an attempt at doping is tantamount to doping" and that "[he would] serve [his] suspension and then return to race."^[17]

On 15 June 2007, Basso received a two-year ban. The time he had already spent under team suspension whilst riding for CSC and temporary suspension since leaving Discovery were taken into consideration which means he was banned until 25 October 2008.^[18]

Return after suspension[link]

After his return Ivan Basso signed a two-year contract with Liquigas, his first race being in the Japan Cup on October 26, 2008. He proceeded to finish third, after Damiano Cunego and Giovanni Visconti. In April 2009 he claimed overall victory in the Italian stage race Giro del Trentino. He then competed in his main objective for the year, the Giro d'Italia, where he finished fifth behind eventual maglia rosa Denis Menchov, Danilo Di Luca, fellow Liquigas rider Franco Pellizotti and 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre. He also placed 4th in the 2009 Vuelta a España behind Alejandro Valverde, Samuel Sánchez, and Cadel Evans respectively.

In his first stage race of 2010, he won the 15th stage of the 2010 Giro d'Italia atop Mount Zoncolan, after his Liquigas team had set the pace for some 150 km in order to chase down a breakaway. After Stage 19, he donned the Maglia Rosa as a result of out-climbing previous race leader David Arroyo, and held it to the end of the race.^[19]

See also[link]

• List of doping cases in cycling
• List of sportspeople sanctioned for doping offences

Career highlights[link]

Grand Tours overall classification results timeline[link]

Grand Tour	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Giro	DNF	52	–	–	–	–	28	1	–	–	4	1	–	5
Tour	–	–	DNF	11	7	3	2	–	–	–	–	31	7
Vuelta	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	4	–	–

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ivan Basso

• Official website (Italian)
• Unofficial Ivan Basso Fan Page (English) / Archived Version

v t e Tour de France young rider classification winners 1975 Francesco Moser 1976 Enrique Martínez Heredia 1977 Dietrich Thurau 1978 Henk Lubberding 1979 Jean-René Bernaudeau 1980 Johan van der Velde 1981 Peter Winnen 1982 Phil Anderson 1983 Laurent Fignon 1984 Greg LeMond 1985 Fabio Parra 1986 Andrew Hampsten 1987 Raúl Alcalá 1988 Erik Breukink 1989 Fabrice Philipot 1990 Gilles Delion 1991 Álvaro Mejía 1992 Eddy Bouwmans 1993 Antonio Martín 1994–1995 Marco Pantani 1996–1998 Jan Ullrich 1999 Benoît Salmon 2000 Francisco Mancebo 2001 Óscar Sevilla 2002 Ivan Basso 2003 Denis Menchov 2004 Vladimir Karpets 2005 Yaroslav Popovych 2006 Damiano Cunego 2007 Alberto Contador 2008–2010 Andy Schleck 2011 Pierre Rolland

v t e Winners of the general classification in the Giro d'Italia 1909 Luigi Ganna 1910–11 Carlo Galetti 1912* Team Atala (Carlo Galetti, Giovanni Micheletto, Eberardo Pavesi) 1913 Carlo Oriani 1914 Alfonso Calzolari 1915–18 World War I 1919 Costante Girardengo 1920 Gaetano Belloni 1921–22 Giovanni Brunero 1923 Costante Girardengo 1924 Giuseppe Enrici 1925 Alfredo Binda 1926 Giovanni Brunero 1927–29 Alfredo Binda 1930 Luigi Marchisio 1931 Francesco Camusso 1932 Antonio Pesenti 1933 Alfredo Binda 1934 Learco Guerra 1935 Vasco Bergamaschi 1936–37 Gino Bartali 1938–39 Giovanni Valetti 1940 Fausto Coppi 1941–45 World War II 1946 Gino Bartali 1947 Fausto Coppi 1948 Fiorenzo Magni 1949 Fausto Coppi 1950 Hugo Koblet 1951 Fiorenzo Magni 1952–53 Fausto Coppi 1954 Carlo Clerici 1955 Fiorenzo Magni 1956 Charly Gaul 1957 Gastone Nencini 1958 Ercole Baldini 1959 Charly Gaul 1960 Jacques Anquetil 1961 Arnaldo Pambianco 1962–63 Franco Balmamion 1964 Jacques Anquetil 1965 Vittorio Adorni 1966 Gianni Motta 1967 Felice Gimondi 1968 Eddy Merckx 1969 Felice Gimondi 1970 Eddy Merckx 1971 Gösta Pettersson 1972–74 Eddy Merckx 1975 Fausto Bertoglio 1976 Felice Gimondi 1977 Michel Pollentier 1978 Johan de Muynck 1979 Giuseppe Saronni 1980 Bernard Hinault 1981 Giovanni Battaglin 1982 Bernard Hinault 1983 Giuseppe Saronni 1984 Francesco Moser 1985 Bernard Hinault 1986 Roberto Visentini 1987 Stephen Roche 1988 Andy Hampsten 1989 Laurent Fignon 1990 Gianni Bugno 1991 Franco Chioccioli 1992–93 Miguel Indurain 1994 Evgeni Berzin 1995 Tony Rominger 1996 Pavel Tonkov 1997 Ivan Gotti 1998 Marco Pantani 1999 Ivan Gotti 2000 Stefano Garzelli 2001 Gilberto Simoni 2002 Paolo Savoldelli 2003 Gilberto Simoni 2004 Damiano Cunego 2005 Paolo Savoldelli 2006 Ivan Basso 2007 Danilo Di Luca 2008 Alberto Contador 2009 Denis Menchov 2010 Ivan Basso 2011 Michele Scarponi 2012 Ryder Hesjedal *This Giro was contested solely by teams, with no individual classification