{"id":932661,"date":"2026-10-18T14:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T14:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/932661\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T14:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T14:08:13","slug":"armstrong-era-whistleblower-has-doubts-about-clean-cycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/932661\/","title":{"rendered":"Armstrong-era whistleblower has doubts about clean cycling"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 1990s in professional cycling are notorious. With the Festina scandal and the beginning of the Lance Armstrong<\/a> era, many strange things happened amid a culture of doping<\/a>. Christophe Bassons experienced it all firsthand and was known as a doping refuser. Now he tells his story about those bizarre times.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"christophe-bassons\"\/Bassons won a stage at the\u00a0Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9<\/p>\n

Bassons was an excellent cyclist who turned pro in 1996 after starting out as a mountain biker. Three years later, he won a stage at the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9, but that was as far as he got.<\/p>\n

According to him, that was because he never wanted to use performance-enhancing drugs. He had already spoken out against banned substances during his career, and that cost him dearly. At the age of 27, he retired from cycling.<\/p>\n

Bassons: ‘I thought it was impossible to win the Tour without doping’On the Winamax Sport<\/a> YouTube channel, he tells his story about his fight against doping. \u201cWhen I saw how things were going, I thought it was impossible to win the Tour without doping,\u201d Bassons said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI alienated everyone. I have the right to express my opinion. I can\u2019t stand injustice. No one spoke to me anymore\u2014not even my teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n

An example: the 1999 Tour de France, which was won by Armstrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore one stage, I heard that they\u2019d decided to take it easy for the first 100 kilometers. As soon as the starting gun went off, I went full throttle. I went down the descent at full speed. Then I felt a hard thud on my shoulder\u2014it was Armstrong. He said I was damaging the sport of cycling, that I didn\u2019t belong there, and he ended with a\u2018f*ck you.\u2019 I looked at him and smiled…\u201d<\/p>\n

\"lance-armstrong\"\/Bassons on New Year’s Eve with “Belgian weed”<\/p>\n

He also cites his first year as a pro as an example. In late 1996, he was invited by \u201cone of the greatest French cyclists\u201d to a New Year\u2019s Eve party. After midnight, that cyclist took his fellow cyclists down to the basement, where things took a strange turn.<\/p>\n

“He gave the first cyclist\u2014who pulled out an insulin syringe filled with ‘Belgian weed’\u2014some amphetamines; anything to make for a good party… He said to me, \u201cTonight, you\u2019re part of the family.\u201d He handed me the syringe. I was shocked\u2014even scared\u2014and I said, \u201cNo, absolutely not.\u201d He took it badly and said, \u201cShut up, don\u2019t say a word.\u201d It really scared me.’<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"doping\"\/Bassons was deliberately forced off the road by current team directors<\/p>\n

His fight against doping was not appreciated. \u201cI was constantly bullied. Some team leaders really wanted me to use doping; they didn\u2019t accuse me of not using doping, but they accused me of not doing my job. They said I had to do everything I could for my team leader. My feeling at the time was that I was the only clean one. The only clean one at Festina out of the 28 riders.\u201d<\/p>\n

His team managers were against him, as were his fellow riders. And that sometimes took on bizarre forms. \u201cIn 2000\u20132001, it escalated to physical intimidation. Some Frenchmen\u2014who are now sports directors\u2014pushed me onto the shoulder of the road. They caused me to crash two or three times,\u201d said Bassons.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"pogacarBassons has doubts about the integrity of the sport<\/p>\n

Bassons, now 52, retired from cycling 25 years ago. The sport of cycling has weathered many scandals but seems to have recovered. There are no major scandals like the one in the 2008 Tour de France. But is cycling truly clean? The Frenchman doesn\u2019t dare say for sure.<\/p>\n

Of course, the sport has evolved tremendously, especially in terms of equipment. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to assess the evolution of the equipment,\u201d Bassons responds.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut performance is steadily increasing. I\u2019m concerned about the entourage of certain teams. Pogacar\u2019s entourage doesn\u2019t exactly have a good reputation,\u201d he says, referring to Mauro Gianetti, who has a checkered past in the sport<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 1990s in professional cycling are notorious. With the Festina scandal and the beginning of the Lance Armstrong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,2435,90670,301239,85,39556],"class_list":["post-932661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-doping","tag-lance-armstrong","tag-latest-cycling-news","tag-sports","tag-uci"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=932661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}