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Mr Clean Christophe Bassons 'not bitter' towards Lance Armstrong
• French cyclist cast out for not taking drugs has no regrets
• 'Lance Armstrong cannot be feeling very comfortable today'
The Observer, Saturday 13 October 2012 23.08 BST

Christophe Bassons, the former Tour de France cyclist, was made to suffer for his anti-drug stance. Photograph: Stéphane Ruet/Sygma/Corbis
The former French racing cyclist Christophe Bassons, who was told to leave the Tour de France and "go home" by disgraced champion Lance Armstrong after speaking out about doping, said he did not feel bitter towards the American. The 38-year-old Bassons, who was nicknamed "Mr Clean", said he had no regrets at all about his refusal to take performance-enhancing drugs that led to him being shunned by colleagues and effectively ended his racing career.

"I don't feel bitter at all. I think if you were to compare the situations today of both Lance Armstrong and myself you might ask who is the happiest, who is the most content, who feels the best about themselves and what they did? I certainly don't have any regrets," he told the Observer. "Lance Armstrong cannot be feeling very comfortable today."

Bassons earned the sort of celebrity that had eluded him on the road during the 1998 doping scandal that hit the French team, Festina. After a car-load of drugs were discovered en route to the team's riders during the Tour de France that year, it emerged that Bassons was the only member who had categorically refused to take any. During the Tour the following year, Bassons wrote a column in Le Parisien newspaper saying he was "shocked" by the performance of Armstrong, who had overcome cancer to reach the front of the peloton.

Later in the Alpe d'Huez stage, Bassons said Armstrong rode up to tell him it was "a mistake" to have spoken out and asked the Frenchman: "Why don't you leave, then?" Shortly afterwards Armstrong confirmed the conversation on French television, saying: "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."

Later, racing with the Française des Jeux team, Bassons was shunned by fellow cyclists who refused to share their winning money with him. The then French sports minister Marie-George Buffet remarked: "What a strange role reversal. Rather than fighting against doping, they're fighting its opponent."

Bassons, who now works as a sports professor for the French ministry of sport and spends up to half of his time trying to prevent doping, said: "I'm not out to get him [Armstrong]. Lots of people today are talking about Lance Armstrong, but there were lots of people like him then and there were lots of people who would have been like him if they'd had the means to be. Perhaps he has regrets about what he has done. I don't have any regrets about what I did."

He added: "My career was not as a cyclist, my career is what I do now as a sports professor. I was lucky to have the physical qualities to cycle and I did so for six years. If I had wanted to continue, to shut up and continue as others did, I could have done so, but I didn't. A career like that didn't please me."

Asked if the outing of Armstrong had changed anything in cycling, Bassons said: "I don't think so. After the Festina scandal in 1998, perhaps doping on an individual basis changed, that's all. Nothing has changed. The products have changed and we can detect some we couldn't detect before, but the intention to cheat is always present. It's human nature."

He added: "I don't think this latest stuff changes very much and it doesn't affect my life. We've known about Lance Armstrong for some time. Today's not the first time it's come out, it's just that today he's facing legal action."

DOC wrote:9 pages of articles and i see no positive test

implications of mass doping yes, but no positive test

adam wrote:enough evidence provided to erase him from the record books...

God is an Englishman wrote:

adam wrote:enough evidence provided to erase him from the record books...

Just checked my book of records and he's still in there!

adam wrote:

God is an Englishman wrote:

adam wrote:enough evidence provided to erase him from the record books...

Just checked my book of records and he's still in there!

suggest you get a new book...

adam wrote:enough evidence provided to erase him from the record books...

adam wrote:

DAM wrote:please remove link....i Got a virus when i clicked on it!

God is an Englishman wrote:interesting conversation last night in regards to armstrong could end up doing jail time for the "lies" he told the grand jury. Also could Nike sue him for their sponsorship money back?

Lance Armstrong's former team-mate Bobby Julich leaves Team Sky after admitting to doping past
American coach Bobby Julich last night became the first victim of Team Sky’s anti-doping purge after confessing to drug offences 14 years ago and team principal Dave Brailsford admitted it was “highly likely” further backroom staff would be sacked.

Brailsford asked staff and riders last week to confirm they had no past links to doping as cycling tries to clean up in the wake of the Lance Armstrong scandal.
Julich, a team-mate of Armstrong’s at Motorola and Cofidis between 1995 and 1997, has now admitted to doping during the late 1990s, when he finished third in the Tour de France.
“It’s painful, it’s the cost of being at the forefront of people being able to believe that we can do it clean,” Brailsford said. “Bobby has shown courage in admitting to the errors he made long before his time with Team Sky.
"It’s important to emphasise that there have been no doubts about his work with us or his approach as a coach. He has done a good job and been a good colleague during his two years with us.
“We’ve made clear our commitment to being a clean team and been open about the steps we’re taking. Although it is never easy to part, we believe this is the right thing to do. I have to look at myself, I have made some mistakes along the way here for sure and you have to learn form those mistakes.”

Brailsford also admitted on BBC radio that Julich could be just the first to depart and attention is bound now to turn to senior directeur sportif Sean Yates, who also rode with Armstong at Motorola and helped coach him at the 2005 Tour de France with Discovery and again four years later with Astana.
Julich insists he stopped doping in 1998 after finishing third in the Tour and his then fiancée Angela, now his wife, stumbled across his drug use.
An Olympic silver medallist in the 2004 time-trial, Julich has been a time-trial coach at Sky for two years, a role that has also included working closely with time-trial specialists such as Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome.
Under the interview and disclosure system Sky have put in place after the United States Anti-Doping Agency report, Julich will receive an undisclosed parachute payment from Sky but if he had failed to admit his doping past, and it subsequently came to light, his contract would have been terminated without any financial package.
One of the first to be interviewed last week, Julich made a full confession to his doping past when he met Brailsford and elaborated further last night when he published an open letter to “Sky, family, friends, fans and supporters of cycling”, on the Cycling News website.
“Those days were very different from today, but it was not a decision that I reached easily,” Julich said. “I knew that it was wrong, but over those two years, the attitude surrounding the use of EPO in the peloton was so casual and accepted that I personally lost perspective of the gravity of the situation.
“During the 1998 Tour, my fiancée found out what was going on from another rider’s wife. She confronted me on it and it was one of the most dreadful experiences of my life. She was never a part of this and I put her in a very difficult situation. She told me right then and there that if it ever happened again, our relationship would be over. That was motivation enough and I knew I had to stop.
“When I began working for Team Sky in 2011, the real selling point for me was their clear commitment to running a clean team and I wanted to be a part of it. I hope that everyone understands that this team is special.
“Dave Brailsford had never competed in the sport at the highest level, and he set out to do things differently.”
Although Brad Wiggins’s Tour de France victory in the Sky colours this summer has widely been accepted as clean and untainted, leading anti-doping scientist Michael Ashenden has warned that nobody can be considered above suspicion.
“By Dave Brailsford’s own words there is a reputational risk that cannot be ignored, the questions need to be asked,” Ashenden said. “If we put ourselves back in 1999 and wonder what would have happened if journalists had taken a more aggressive investigational approach into Lance Armstrong, would we be in the same situation we are today?”

Sean Yates loses job at Team Sky as Dave Brailsford's doping cull continues

Sean Yates, one of the men who masterminded Bradley Wiggins’ Tour de France victory in July, has left Team Sky after admitting an involvement in doping.

Telegraph Sport understands that Yates, a legendary figure on the British cycling scene for nearly three decades, has left the team with immediate effect after completing an interview with Team Sky’s general manager, David Brailsford, as part of his policy of zero tolerance to doping.
The exact nature of the doping has not been revealed but Yates has a considerable history of riding with the young Lance Armstrong at Motorola and then twice coaching him at the Tour de France, in 2005 when Armstrong won riding for Discovery, and 2009 when he finished third for Astana.
Armstrong has been stripped of seven Tour titles and has been asked to pay back more than £10 million in prize money and bonuses after US anti-doping officials uncovered what has been described as the biggest drug scandal in sporting history.
Dutchman Steven de Jongh, the Sky coach who largely looked after their classics team this summer, has also left the team in the wake of the Armstrong affair.
The nature of De Jongh’s connection with doping has also not yet been confirmed but his history of riding with the discredited Dutch team TVM, which was disbanded because of doping violations, in the 1990s has placed increased scrutiny on him.

adam wrote:

Sean Yates loses job at Team Sky as Dave Brailsford's doping cull continues

Sean Yates, one of the men who masterminded Bradley Wiggins’ Tour de France victory in July, has left Team Sky after admitting an involvement in doping.
Telegraph Sport understands that Yates, a legendary figure on the British cycling scene for nearly three decades, has left the team with immediate effect after completing an interview with Team Sky’s general manager, David Brailsford, as part of his policy of zero tolerance to doping.
The exact nature of the doping has not been revealed but Yates has a considerable history of riding with the young Lance Armstrong at Motorola and then twice coaching him at the Tour de France, in 2005 when Armstrong won riding for Discovery, and 2009 when he finished third for Astana.
Armstrong has been stripped of seven Tour titles and has been asked to pay back more than £10 million in prize money and bonuses after US anti-doping officials uncovered what has been described as the biggest drug scandal in sporting history.
Dutchman Steven de Jongh, the Sky coach who largely looked after their classics team this summer, has also left the team in the wake of the Armstrong affair.
The nature of De Jongh’s connection with doping has also not yet been confirmed but his history of riding with the discredited Dutch team TVM, which was disbanded because of doping violations, in the 1990s has placed increased scrutiny on him.

God is an Englishman wrote:he must be really gutted now - it looks like he's going to lose "the key to Adelaide".

STEVEN de Jongh has stepped down from his role as Team Sky's sporting director after admitting to using performance-enhancing drugs during his career.

"Steven de Jongh has left Team Sky following three seasons as sports director," the British team announced.

"After the team reaffirmed its position on anti-doping, Steven disclosed that he had taken a banned substance earlier in his career as a professional rider."

De Jongh is the third staff member to leave the team after Sky announced a zero-tolerance stance on doping in the aftermath of the Lance Armstrong scandal.

Senior sports director Sean Yates announced his retirement from professional cycling on Sunday, while American Bobby Julich left the squad last week after admitting that he took banned blood-booster EPO during his racing career.

Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford said: "There's no doubt about Steven's work with us or his approach. He's been a highly valued sports director and colleague over three seasons.


"Steven deserves our respect for the courage he's shown in being honest about the past and it's right that we do our best to support him.

"He has our best wishes for the next step in his career."