An ode to an awkward idol
In light of impending domination at the Giro d’Italia, the memory of an old idol of mine keeps coming up. While Ivan Basso’s story might not be on your mind, here is why he is on mine
While this newsletter is not meant to be all about professional cycling all of the time, once a week I will drop something relating to the world of racing. The pointy end of the sport is what brought me in, what continues to inspire me and provides a continuous lens at which to consume the sport. That being said, I have written my fair share of conventional pro cycling stories and I will be taking this a different direction. Make no mistake, this is a subjective column – think Bill Simmons and John Feinstein instead of ESPN.
Ivan Basso wears many hats. Now retired, the former two-time Giro d’Italia winner and pride of the Italian Tifosi owns a blueberry farm. In the cycling world, Basso is the co-owner of team Polti-Kometa with another legend, Alberto Contador. He also wears the crown of being Italy’s most successful rider in cycling's most complicated chapter, with his persona a central character in the Armstrong era’s darker complications.
‘Ivan the Terrible,’ as his moniker reads, was one of the great all-rounders of the noughties peloton, twice finishing on the podium of the Tour de France as Lance Armstrong’s late-stage rival, and taking more than 30 career victories. His first Giro victory, in 2006, was one of the most emphatic Grand Tour displays in modern cycling. His victory in the 2010 Giro was less dominant, but extremely cathartic for Basso following the doping suspension that preceded that victory. In the later part of his career, he raced as a road captain and super domestique with Alberto Contador, forging a friendship which would lead to their ownership of a bike brand and professional team in retirement.
The period of Basso’s success is deeply complicated. Doping, like any kind of cheating, is centrally human. In the era he raced in it was also, to a certain extent, understandable. In Basso’s case, through the story he continues to tell of his past doping, you recognise even more of the rationality behind it. Though he plainly admits his doping was a mistake, as he mused on the history of cycling that inspired him and the big riders who were his idols, it is understandable how his motivation to become a big champion in the mould of those he watched as a child lead him to dope.
Yet, Basso was one of the defining characters of that era of doping and thus holds more responsibility for his transgressions. Just as Basso's intense motivation that contributed to his doping was, indirectly, inspired by the success of his hero's Francesco Moser and Miguel Induráin, Basso was the hero of aspiring cyclists himself. Cycling is a sport, like any, where the actions of stars and legends have always caused ripples and reverberations for the next generation of cyclists and fans who fall in love with the sport.
I would know since I was once one of those fans.
In 2005, I was a five-year-old boy who loved bikes. At the time, my family and I lived in Oakland, California, and Lance Armstrong was the man. Looking back now, one of the first memories lodged in my mind is of watching Amstrong’s last Tour de France. The two things that stand out are Michael Rasmussen’s shocker of a final time trial, where he crashed twice and made three bike changes, and the captivating quality of Ivan Basso.
Fortunately for me, that September Basso appeared across the San Francisco Bay at the long-forgotten San Francisco Grand Prix. The race was capitalising on the popularity of Armstrong, and for my five-year-old eyes, it was the biggest thing in the world. The central character that captured my attention that day was the Italian, who I studied before the race sipping a cappuccino before gliding off to the start line on his ruby red Cervélo.
In Basso’s riding, there was a souplesse, an elegant sensitivity, to the way he pedalled. Compared to Armstrong, Basso was emotive and traditional in his style, a grace that seemed to evoke memories of legends like Fausto Coppi and Jacques Anquetil. It was the aesthetics of the Italian that spoke to me as I was choosing who my next idol would be when Armstrong exited stage left. It did not matter that there were other Americans who could have taken up the mantle. Basso was my guy.
He was also the first person to break my heart.
In 2007, when Basso was ultimately banned for his connection to Operación Puerto - he claimed that he only planned to dope for the 2006 Tour, and not previously, despite a fellow rider implying his doping during the 2006 Giro - I got the news during a first-grade passion project. It was one of those educational fairs popular in American elementary schools where all the kids set up shop with tri-fold cardboard posters and chaotic descriptions of things they enjoy. I, in my childish tendency to zig when others zagged, chose the Irish cyclist Sean Kelly.
One of the parents wandering around the maze of cardboard showed an interest in my poster. As a cyclist himself, the idea of an eight-year-old building a passion project around a retired Irish cyclist must have been a trip. He let me do my speech, referencing King Kelly’s green jersey wins, triumphs at the Vuelta and in the Classics, and his near misses at the Tour of Flanders. When asked about my favourite cyclist, the answer was simple: Ivan Basso.
When the dad informed me, with all the sensitivity his Wall Street ass could muster, that Basso got “popped,” I was inconsolable. The purity of the sport was gone and I learned the lesson of the humanity behind my hero. Important in my journey through life, but heavy nonetheless.
By the time Basso returned to cycling in 2009, the romanticism of my cycling understanding had changed. Not only are nine-year-olds much wiser to the complications of the human experience than seven-year-olds, but cycling's romantic flair was facing a constant buzzsaw in its confrontation of the murk of doping. I was old enough to witness all of it. The lustre of the Armstrong era was fully gone.
Nonetheless, Basso was back in a big way. In winning the 2010 Giro, Basso, rhetorically, asked an important question to cycling writ large, a question not lost on little old me. In a race that stands out in the collective memory of cycling fans for the muddy ‘Strade Bianche’ stage 7 to Montalcino, Vincenzo Nibali’s first Grand Tour podium, and Ivan Basso clawing back to winning ways on the Zoncolan before finishing his comeback to cement his second Giro title, we were reminded that cycling is complicated. How should cycling, holistically, respond to tarnished winners winning more?
When Basso wheeled into the Arena di Verona to finish his final time trial and the tifosi roared like a champion had returned vindicated from time in exile, I remember feeling a sense of discomfort. Stylistically, and to my more dramatic side, the Giro had been enthralling and Basso was an exciting winner. Nonetheless, I was unconvinced that the story I saw was any bit as romantic as the Italian press painted it.
Now, no rider is simply the sum of their victories, nor is a rider a sum of their mistakes. Yet, the legacy of Ivan Basso is not only that of a flawed athlete, but of a flawed era of the sport. Basso is a symptom and a cause. A symptom of the culture and doping practices that preceded him, and a cause of the muddled sense of discomfort that came from his post-suspension success.
That feeling of discomfort has tinted my perception of cycling since. I guess that's why they say there is no romance quite like your first. Even if it is better, the sour taste lingers strong enough to cloud what could be just as sweet.