Christopher Bassons banned for one-year
French Cycling Federation has suspended Christophe Bassons for one-year after he missed a doping control test on September 1st.
The cyclist could not comply with the French Cycling Federation’s policy and missed the post match dope test at the Marathon Mountain Bike event, French championships in Langon.
The 38-year-old cited that he missed the test because of an error on his behalf as he was stopped while the race was in progress, which caused confusion.
“I abandoned the race 20km from the finish. When I stopped, someone from the organisation asked for my name, noted the number on my dossard and then informed the race commissaire,” Bassons told L’Équipe.
“I recognise that it was an error not to wait until the end of the race to see if my name appeared on the list of riders who were to be controlled”.
“I got on the road home to Bordeaux and it was only two and a half hours after my abandon that I got a phone call from the race timekeeper to tell me that I had to do a control”.
Christopher explained that it was too late after he received the phone call as he had already left the venue and it was unfeasible for him to make it back to the race site.
Bassons marked his professional debut with Team Force Sud in 1996 and moved to Team Festina for the 1996-98 seasons later on.
He penned a one-year deal with Team Francaise des Jeux in 1999 and signed a two-year deal with Team Jean Delatour through 2000-01 seasons and retired from professional cycling in 2001.
The French made his only Tour de France appearance back in 1999 and could not finish the race after he joined Lance Armstrong along with several other riders to clarify their displeasure for the anti-doping emotions in an article for Le Monde.
As a response to the one-year ban, it is believed that Christophe will launch an appeal against the FFC sanction as he has queries as to why he was not informed about the test earlier.
It will be interesting to see, if Bassons manages to clear his name and avoid the one-year suspension as implemented by the French Cycling Federation.
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