This morning Nives Basso, mother of Ivan, lost her nine-month fight against stomach and liver cancer. She died during the morning, aged 49. Mrs Basso’s illness became news during the Tour de France last year, when Ivan Basso dedicated his stage 12 victory to his mother who was at that time in the hospital. The issue received additional coverage because Ivan Basso was at the same time the closest competitor to Lance Armstrong, whose Foundation assisted the Basso’s with references to cancer specialists.

Tutto Bici Web Article

The funeral will take place tommorrow in Cassano Magnano.

“I apologise to everyone who knows me and everyone who would like to speak to me,” Basso said this morning. “I would like to call all of the people who love me, too - and fortunately for me there are a lot of them – but I just can’t do it. I hope that everyone understands what we are going through at this time.”

Our condolences to Ivan Basso and his family, and we hope that people will respect and understand the family’s need for privacy in this difficult time.

For the past week, Ivan Basso and Team CSC have been slaving away at the team’s second training camp of the season.

In yesterday’s La Gazzetta dello Sport, the paper reports from their visit to Team CSC’s training camp.

During the training camp, the team has been training six hours a day, with specific tests in climbs and interval training. In addition, Ivan Basso has extra work on his time-trial bike, in order to further improve in the discipline.

Ivan Basso explains that he is 3 kgs from his in-form weight of 69 kgs; which he expects to gradually reduce prior to the Giro. The expectation is to arrive at La Fleche Wallone and Liege-Bastogne-Liege in close to top-form, although there is no pressure for results until the Giro.

On his Giro preparations, he informs that he has already twice raced the time-trial stage at Florence, and expects to try out all of the other Giro stages (including the second time-trial stage) before race start in May. In particular the Sestrierre, the Zoldo Alto, and Limone Piemonte stages are high on his list of priorities. The Livigno stage with the famous Stelvio climb, will ideally be the last he tests on.

It is in the time trials that many expect Basso to have the edge over the man who has been appointed his direct rival, Damiano Cunego, and Basso has been working hard on this aspect of his riding. His custom-built Cervelo has been further optimized this year, and he rides it three times a week in his quest to further improve on his time-trialling. It is also planned for him to practice two days on the tracks at the Velodrome in Dusseldorf, as well as further wind-tunnel testing. But Basso is preparing for the mountains as well. He continues to work on his pedalling cadence, which improved by 10 pedals a minute when climbing last year, and hopes to improve it by another 5 pedals this year.

Basso names Andrea Peron, Giovanni Lombardi, Dave Zabriskie and Christian Vande Velde as his lieutenants for the Giro, with the other four positions still to be decided. Although he acknowledges that the team is hardly the strongest Grand Tour team that CSC can provide, he points out that it is a team with unity of purpose and ready to work its heart out that will line up at the start in May.

Finally, he comments on the doping doubts that have apparently been raised in the Italian press after Team CSC’s extraordinary start to the season by pointing out: “We have already been riding hard for almost 30 days this year at our training camps; if anyone has any doubts, they are welcome to come and train with us.”

The Cycling media has had a spotlight on Ivan Basso this month, with several of the english language cycling magazines featuring extensive interviews and cover stories.

Cycle Sport kicks off the coverage with its February issue “Climbers Special”, with featuring great climbers of yesteryear (Hampsten, Bahamontes, Lucien van Impe, Julio Jiminez, Jose Maria Jiminez, and others) as well as two of today’s climbing stars: Damiano Cunego and Ivan Basso. The cover story interview with Basso provides a good overview of his career so far, as well as Basso’s thoughts on the Tour 2004 and the challenges for the future.

Procycling goes it one step beyond, with an entire section of the March issue dedicated to its “CSC Special”, featuring a report on the December “military boot camp” training of CSC, an in-depth guide to the region of Lucca with CSC rider and recent Tour of Qatar winner Lars Michaelsen, and (of course) yet another interview with Ivan Basso. The interview is more personal than the Cycle Sport interview, taking us into Basso’s home and going into the how and why of his change to CSC and the 2004 season, as well as the plans for 2005.

Team CSC succeeded in completing its mission at the Tour of Qatar, capturing all three spots on the podium (Michaelsen, Breschel, Guidi), best young rider (Breschel), and the overall team competition. Voigt completed what has been an exception season start from Team CSC by taking a stage at the Etoile de Besseges and winning the points competition in that race.

Ivan Basso who was scheduled to have started his season at the GP Costa degli Etruschi today did not start the race. No reason has been given for his retirement from the starting lineup by Team CSC so far.

Ivan Basso’s team, Team CSC, have had a flying start to the season, with triumphs in both of the season openers.

In the European season opener at the Grand Prix d’Ouverture La Marseillaise tuesday, Basso’s danish lieutenant, Nicki Sørensen, took the win in front of team mate Vladimir Gusev.

And on the third stage of the Tour of Qatar, a massive team effort by Team CSC splintered the peloton, isolated race leader Tom Boonen, and secured Lars Michaelsen the win in front of neo-pro Matti Breschel (also Team CSC). Team CSC ended with six riders in the top eight on the stage, and with Michaelsen, Breschel, and Guidi leading in the overall, with good chances of sweeping the podium when the race ends friday.

Welcome to the unofficial Ivan Basso fan page.

The page came about because I felt there ought to be an English language page about one of the present generation’s most talented cyclists. The site will attempt to keep up to date on his race schedule, results, and any English language interviews and features that pop up on the net (as well as old ones).

The site was created by Michael Akinde, with support from the official Ivan Basso Fan Club at IvanBasso.it. We hope you enjoy it.

P.S. The site is still under construction; notably I still need to add some more pictures to the galleries (if you have any pictures of Basso and are willing to give us permission to display them, please contact us), and other sections will be completed with more details, corrections, and so on.