One of cycling's most promising stars, Italian Ivan Basso, was handed a 2-year suspension from pro cycling on Friday for his involvement with a blood-doping Spanish doctor.
Basso admitted to “attempted doping,” but never carrying through with it. That admission was enough to earn him the ban, which actually expires Oct. 24, 2008, due to previous suspensions.
Considered to be one of the world's top cyclists, Basso won the 2006 Giro d'Italia, and finished on the Tour de France podium with Lance Armstrong in 2005 and 2004. In predicting a Tour de France winner in 2006, Armstrong vacillated between Basso and German Jan Ullrich as his successor as Tour champion.
As it turned out, both were among those suspended during last year's Tour for being possibly linked to Eufemiano Fuentes, a Spanish doctor at the center of the “Operacion Puerto” blood doping probe. Ullrich couldn't get a job on the bike this year and was advising a team. Basso quit Team CSC, was hired by Discovery, but lost his job before this year's Giro.
After the Italian cycling federation handed down the ban, Basso said he accepted the sentence.
“I'm going to continue to train and plan to return in 2009. I've got to look to the future. … I can't do anything else.”
Basso had given the federation a file with the results of 60 doping tests, all which came back negative.
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