Ivan Basso
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Ivan Basso (born November 26, 1977) is a cyclist from Gallarate, Italy. He is currently part of the Danish CSC team.
In the 2002 edition of the Tour de France, Basso won the white jersey, the award presented to the rider best-placed in the general classification under 25 years-old. He impressed again in the 2003 Tour, finishing seventh overall in spite of receiving little help from his Fassa Bortolo team-mates, who dedicated their efforts in the first part of the race to help Alessandro Petacchi win four stages in the Tour.
He moved to Danish Team CSC, and Basso completed the 2004 Tour de France in third place finishing 6 minutes and 40 seconds behind Lance Armstrong. He held his daughter in his arms as he was honored in Paris and was resilient about his chances of a future Tour win.
After participating with the Italian team in the 2004 Verona World Championships, helping fellow Italian Luca Paolini get a Bronze Medal, he decided to focus on the 2005 Giro, his main aim for that season. However, and unfortunately for him, a virus struck him during the Stelvio stage, where he lost 40 minutes with respect to the other main riders. He had shown he was in form during the previous stages, and after recovering from the bug, which ironically only affected thim on that precise day, he continued showing he was by far the strongest man in the race by winning two more stages with a great superiority. In one of them, a time trial, he showed great progress in comparison to the season before, where he had lost a lot of time in the time trials.
Probably, Basso would have won the 2005 Giro had it not been for his unfortunate illness.
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