Did Lance Armstrong end this guys career? (A sad story)

geeteewmb

Worth a read at this - didn't know this story:

Over the last 6 months, I've beginning to change my views on LA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophe_Bassons

Nadder

Sad story - not entirely sure its LA's fault - he was a hot head though back in the day! How good is it that so far there has been no scandal!!

afx237vi

Nadder wrote:

Sad story - not entirely sure its LA's fault - he was a hot head though back in the day! How good is it that so far there has been no scandal!!

That depends entirely on whether you think the peloton is clean or not.

takethehighroad

Opening a can of worms here lol.

He was very outspoken at a time when omerta dominated the peloton (even more than it does today), there was only ever gona be one person who lost out.

If you read Jeremy Whittle's book Bad Blood there's quite a bit of detail about Bassons the person.

Jez mon

Bassons ended his own career, he did the right thing, but nevertheless his actions ended his career.

Bassons, "I started feeling isolated. In the middle of 170 riders, that's a tough way to live."

The thing is, Lance was just one of 169 riders who left Bassons feeling isolated.

knedlicky

Bassons’ ‘problem’ was that he was an idealist and outsider, and didn’t want to offend anyone. I don’t remember him being particularly outspoken other than in vague general terms, I suppose because he didn’t want ‘grass’ on his colleagues or want to prejudice his own future (although by his reticence, he effectively did).
In real terms, honest considerate idealists unfortunately never succeed in influencing change in anything, neither in sport nor politics.

Stuey01

How in the fuck is this Lance Armstrong's fault?

Steve Tcp

If you consider Armstrong's run in with Simeoni as well as his Bassons confrontatation then it's clear he's the moral conscience of the Peleton, a patron we can all trust to crusade for the good of ALL riders with never a vested interest in sight. :twisted:

To be honest though it's not Armstrongs fault entirely Stuey, but he shares a part of the collective culpability and, with his direct approach to confronting Bassons (and Simeoni), would it not be fair to say he deserves a slightly bigger portion of that blame than those who just opted for blind ignorance towards the whistle blower?

jimmythecuckoo

What I dont get is that Bassons isnt a million miles away in his attitude from Moncoutie.

But LA and the other omertaites don't seem to go after him.

SunWuKong

NO I don't think so if that wikipedia article is correct his team mates and many of the other riders are as much to blame. However the LA quotes are interesting because they seem to be supportive of keeping quite about doping which is surely supportive of doping.

Kléber

I think Montcoutie just says he rides clean, he won't denounce riders who chose to work with the likes of Fuentes or Ferrari. But Bassons was penning newspaper articles denouncing what he saw, he was a whistleblower and in classic mob rule, he got lynched. But remember if Armstrong was set against Bassons, so were many others.

Steve Tcp

I always got the impression that people disliked Bassons for reasons other than simply his anti doping stance. Perhaps Moncoutie is better liked by his team mates and less vocal about doping.

Steve Tcp

Kléber wrote:

I think Montcoutie just says he rides clean, he won't denounce riders who chose to work with the likes of Fuentes or Ferrari.

So because he doesn't denounce he's not clean? Could it not be that he rides clean but doesn't want to end up like Bassons?

Kléber

Oh no, I'm convinced Moncoutie is clean, it's just he keeps his head down. He seems a quiet sort of guy. Bassons specifically named riders and teams.

Steve Tcp

Ooops, sorry Kléber, re-reading your comment I see what you mean now, and I agree with you.

Kléber

I didn't word that so well, the emphasis above should be on the "he" and not on the "says":

Kléber wrote:

I think Montcoutie just says he rides clean

...meaning the Cofidis rider just wants to talk about what he is doing and gets uncomfortable discussing other riders and their methods.

bikerZA

As much as I hate LA, you can't blame him for this. It was the mentality of the peleton as a whole that lead to the Bassons issues.

Stuey01

Steve Tcp wrote:

To be honest though it's not Armstrongs fault entirely Stuey, but he shares a part of the collective culpability and, with his direct approach to confronting Bassons (and Simeoni), would it not be fair to say he deserves a slightly bigger portion of that blame than those who just opted for blind ignorance towards the whistle blower?

Sounds from that article like Armstrong's direct approach was also taken by other riders in the peleton, including his own teammates. The only difference being that Armstrong is worthy of mention because he is the best known.
Collective culpability, I agree, but don't buy the bigger portion of the blame part.

Echo et les Boniments

bikerZA and Stuey are right, the problem was the mentality of the peloton as a whole. I don't think Hinault or Anquetil would have acted different than Armstrong. During that Tour (1999), Bassons was writing a daily column for Liberation some kind of sermonizing BoBo newspaper that would usually ignore cycling unless there was a doping scandal to tell about. Day after day Bassons would slag his colleagues off, wondering how they could ever go that fast on bread and water alone, repeatedly implying nobody was clean except him. Everybody was p*ssed off in the pack -and yes, especially his Française des Jeux teammates and team director Madiot. 7 months down the season Bassons was still saying 'vous' to Madiot instead of 'tu'... Friendly, hey. Bassons was a sullen self-confessed loner on a mission: the fight for a drugfree Tour. Obviously it was never going to work. FDJ people didn't give him any sort of support. Still Bassons' career didn't end there he raced as a pro until 2001 then threw the towel admitting nothing would ever change in pro cycling. (We all have admitted that at some point, otherwise we wouldn't be watching the Tour.)
In France the word is Bassons' mind was never as strong as his legs.

I still have a lot more respect for Bassons, who was a gifted cyclist and never took anything than for Simeoni, a guy who tried everything, realized he was being treated unfairly by Ferrari and eventually figured a good way to become famous was to adopt a radically antidoping attitude. But if you want to talk about a great French cyclist who was denied a great career because he vehemently refused to use the pharmacy, try Gilles Delion, not Bassons.