A Clean Break: My Story by Christophe Bassons with Benoit Hopquin

From 1996 to 2001, Christophe Bassons was a successful professional cyclist with some of Europe's top teams. National Championships, the Dauphine, the Tour de France - he competed in the biggest races as part of the sport's elite yet generally managed to avoid the full glare of the media spotlight. But that all changed when, in 1998, the Festina doping scandal broke and Bassons shot to fame as one of the few clean riders in the peloton - and as the only professional who dared to speak openly on about the topic.

Having been seen as a possible champion, his instinctive and stubborn refusal to dope saw him outstripped in physique, stamina and speed by men he'd once equalled or exceeded. His willingness to denounce the doping culture set him against the entire ethos of professional cycling: owners, management and his peers, who labelled him a coward and mockingly called him 'Mr Clean'.

Within a year, his career was effectively over. Having clashed publicly with other riders - notably with Lance Armstrong during the 1999 Tour - and written in French newspapers of his disbelief and disgust, Bassons found himself exhausted and exiled, chewed up and spat out by the sport he loved.

Despite the recent revelations from Armstrong, Tyler Hamilton and other high-profile figures proving all his claims right, Bassons remains remarkably free of regrets or bitterness, still in love with the sport - and just as committed to the fight against doping today.

A Clean Break provides a unique, brutally honest and absorbing take on the subject from someone who was there all along. it is, quite simply, unmissable reading for all cycling fans.

Genres: Nonfiction - Sports - Biography - Cycling - Autobiography
Condition: Very good
Published: 2014 by Bloomsbury - English Translation
Pages: 227
ISBN: 9781472910363
Weight: 345g