Two Wheel Blogs

is a good offense. Ivan's getting on the offense to get ahead of the bad press he's sure to get when he wins the Giro. Well he's won it already but let's wait until it official ok? So anyway just like with that other guy who won Le Tour so many times it got boring Basso's going to get hammered by the press. They're going to weave every little story into a web of deceipt. They just can't let a guy be a clean winner.

Don't believe me? Just wait and see. Anyway here's the little story from Cycling News where Basso's going on the offense. He just knows they're going to use this to call him guilty by association.

Basso remembered something he'd recently read in a newspaper, which said he was still working with one Luigi Cecchini, a publicity-shy preparatore who has quietly worked with some of the biggest names in cycling, including Michele Bartoli, Alessandro Petacchi, Jan Ullrich and Damiano Cunego. His name was also involved in the doping case surrounding another Italian doctor, Michele Ferrari, but was dropped in 2001 due to a lack of evidence.

Cecchini was also Bjarne Riis' preparatore for a number of years, which saw the tall Dane triumph in the 1996 Tour de France. When Riis set up Team CSC, he hired the now 62 year-old Italian to help formulate individual training programs for his riders and assist with training methods, but as the relationship between Basso and Riis developed, the former's contact with Cecchini became less frequent. Around July last year, Basso terminated his cooperation with him.

"Before you write that, come and ask me, because I don't work with Cecchini," he said tersely. "I work with Bjarne Riis and my preparatore is Riis. If journalists come and see us training, they will see the way we work and our philosophy, and you will see how we are working.

"I don't like to read statements [about myself] that aren't true - ask before you write."

Hang in there Ivan.