Christophe Bassons on why he forgave Lance Armstrong's bullying and his fears that omerta still reigns in pro cycling

Christophe Bassons, the French rider dubbed 'Mr. Clean' during the Festina Affair and the EPO doping of the nineties, has spoken at length to Winamax TV about why he refused to dope, his famous battle and then reconciliation with Lance Armstrong and his concerns for the current generation of riders.

Bassons was in shock when Armstrong blasted to victory in Sestriere at the 1999 Tour, which was supposed to be the Tour of Renewal after the 1998 Festina Affair. The day after he went on the attack alone but the peloton chased him down and Armstrong bullied him, angry for his attack and his public stance against doping in a column for the Le Monde newspaper.

"Seeing how things were going, I thought it was impossible to win the Tour without doping and I said it in my column. I alienated everyone but I had to speak out because I can't stand injustice," Bassons told Winamax TV in a revealing 90-minute interview.

"When they caught me after my attack, everyone started yelling from all sides. I'm taking heat. I thought to myself: 'They're going to take me out.'

"Then suddenly, I felt a big slap on my shoulder and it was Armstrong, grabbing me by the shoulder. He spoke to me in English, telling me that what I was doing was total nonsense, not true, that I'm bad for cycling and that I don't belong here, that if I'm not happy, I should go home. He finished off with a 'Fuck You!'

"I don't speak English, but I managed to understand him. I looked at him and just smiled, to show that he didn't actually impress me, and that I'd keep doing what I wanted to do."

The scene was re-enacted for the movie 'The Program' about Armstrong's career.

Armstrong later said: "If my son one day was wearing the yellow jersey and I saw him talking to Bassons the way I did, I would have a long, long conversation with him. It's one of the episodes of my life that I regret the most." 

Bassons eventually quit pro cycling in 2001 and has long worked for the French Anti-Doping Authorities. He is also a school sports teacher and remains proud that he was morally strong enough to resist the temptation to dope.

Now 52, Basson also revealed details of how teams tried to convince him to dope or even take legal 'recoup' injections to start him on the path of legal medication. He always refused and even refused to take Pot Belge - a mix of amphetamines and stimulants - during a New Year's Eve party at a rider's house.

Armstrong eventually confessed to doping in 2013 and later travelled to Europe to apologise to some of the people he had publicly attacked, including Bassons. They met in a Paris restaurant with two journalists invited by Bassons and a translator.

"I think it shows that, in the end, short term choices aren't always the right ones," Bassons said. 

"The primary reason why I met him is that a few years earlier, Pantani died. He died alone in a room after falling into drug addiction because he tested positive and was rejected by the cycling world. I told myself that if I refused to meet Armstrong maybe in two years or two months, he could end up dead in a room too.

"I told him he didn't have to apologise to me. What he did wasn't to hurt me but to save himself.

I told him: 'Today I'm happy. I have no regrets. I have no secrets. I have a wife and I have beautiful children. What about you?' He took out a photo and said: 'I have a beautiful family too.' That meant that he understood that ultimately his happiness wasn't what he did in the past."

Bassons was asked to judge current performances in pro cycling. He warned about a sense of omerta that still exists due to the generation of riders from the nineties now working as sports directors or in other roles in the sport.

"I haven't ridden a road bike since 2001, so it's complicated for me because I can't track the evolution of the equipment," Bassons admitted.

"However there is one factor that isn't influenced by the equipment, and that's power. Power levels are constantly rising.

"There are riders who are very, very strong at the start and the end of last season, including one in particular. I'd be reassured if they quit after 12 days or crack after 15 days. They didn't crack. 

"There are a lot of things that strike me, as well as the entourages of these teams who live with secrets. How can you think these people have changed if they live in denial? It's impossible."

When asked, Bassons confirmed he was referring to Tadej Pogačar and the UAE Team Emirates-XRG team manager Mauro Giannetti. 

The Swiss team manager has always denied any wrong doing, with many riders believing the pro cycling has changed and improved massively since the nineties.       

"There's this culture that's maintained by the old guard. There are issues of recovery. There's the omerta that reigns over this environment. How can you think that this environment is clean if it doesn't open up to the world?"