Basso Is Ready for Lead Role

Ivan Basso disappears into a crowd. At 5 feet 11, he is not a big man, and his head seems larger than his body, so he sinks his neck into his shoulders, turtle-like.

It is a position most comfortable for Basso. He is a professional cyclist, one of immense talent, with the kind of special drive that pushes a man to keep pumping, even as the mountain grade makes it easier to fall back, even as the cold air freezes around his nostrils, even as the other riders lose their breath and their spirit, unwilling to take the pain and punishment one must endure when racing a bike through the Pyrenees or Alps.

Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong has retired from the sport he made famous in the U.S. Basso, a friend of Armstrong’s, a quiet Italian who seems to gather only friends and no jealous enemies, has taken over Armstrong’s role as Tour favorite.

Basso, who finished second to Armstrong last year, and Germany’s Jan Ullrich are most frequently mentioned as Armstrong’s likely successors.

The 2006 race begins Saturday with the prologue in Strasbourg in eastern France, in an area of quiet rivers, rolling hills and the grapes that make Alsatian wine.

Basso, 28, comes from Cassanago Magnago, a small town in the mountains between the lake area near Como and fashion capital Milan. Basso says he grew up in a household where words weren’t much in use. Getting on the bike and riding away into the woods provided Basso even more quiet.

He is a husband now to Micaela and the father of two, a daughter, 4-year-old Domitila, and Santiago, his infant son. On his bicycle he has a heart with Micaela’s name entwined in the middle. His cycling hero is not Armstrong but Miguel Indurain, “Big Mig,” the silent Spaniard who in the 1990s won five consecutive Tours while seldom saying a word.

Basso is trying to step out from under Armstrong’s shadow. This spring, for instance, he won the Giro d’Italia -- the tour of Italy -- considered the world’s second-most-important race and one very difficult to win for anyone planning to race the Tour de France six weeks later. That’s a double Armstrong never tried.

“The Giro just wasn’t that big a deal in the U.S. and for our sponsors,” Armstrong once said.

Former Tour rider and current television analyst Paul Sherwen said, “If you’d asked me at the start of the year who I’d favor, I would have said right out it was Basso. Right now it’s a question mark. The fact is, trying to do the double is very difficult.

” ... Now, it seems if you really want to win the Tour, you skip the Giro. But he made a promise to his mother to win the Giro and somehow now, I believe the effort he put into the Giro might pay off. He won the Giro in fairly easy fashion. He didn’t have to dig into reserves.”

Basso dominated the Giro, winning by more than nine minutes in a way reminiscent of the way Armstrong strangled the fight out of Tour competitors the last seven years.

“Ivan won in such defining fashion, dominating mountain stages, not allowing opponents even a breath of air when they were chasing him,” said former Tour winner and CSC leader Bjarn Riis.

“Don’t underestimate Ivan’s toughness or desire,” said Bobby Julich, an American teammate on CSC, the Danish team funded by an El Segundo company and led by Basso.

“Riding with Ivan every day, you realize he doesn’t say much but he listens to everything. He takes things to heart. He learned from Lance too. He learned what hard work and dedication can do and also what it means to have confidence in yourself.”

“I admired his strength,” Basso said, “and his silence.”

He grew close to Armstrong in 2002 and 2003, when Basso’s mother, Nives, was battling stomach cancer. As a cancer survivor himself, Armstrong befriended the quiet Italian and offered all the support and medical resources Armstrong could muster.

Basso’s mother died last year, but Ivan was struck by Armstrong’s kindness.

“I remember Lance for his good,” Basso said last year. “He was a friend when I had need of one.”

Basso is not a natural cyclist. He became one, he said, by watching Indurain on television. And his love of cycling grew every time he watched a race. It didn’t hurt, of course, that he lived next door to Italian cycling star Claudio Chiappucci who won three Tour stages.

In 1998, Basso won the world under-23 championship, stamping himself as a cyclist to watch. In 2002, he finished 11th in the Tour, then in 2003 he moved up to seventh even while riding for a weak team.

But in 2004, Riis approached Basso with a contract. “Bjarn believed in me,” Basso said. “He was the first to tell me I could win the Tour.”

Basso beat Armstrong in a Tour mountain stage in 2004, and last year Basso was the only rider who stayed close to Armstrong.

“He’s a quiet exterminator,” said Phil Liggett, former Tour rider and television commentator. “His silence is shattering....

“Riis has talked Basso into believing he can win. For the last two years, he was the only guy who could hold on to Lance in the mountains. In Italy this year, he rode his own race. If he rides that race again, he will win the Tour.

“While the others were afraid of Lance the last two or three years, Ivan was watching. He’s learned from Lance. He has gotten better each and every year and done it quietly.”

So strong a rider had Basso become that Armstrong’s U.S. team, Discovery Channel, and its director, Johan Bruyneel, made inquiries about hiring Basso to replace Armstrong as team leader this year. Ultimately Basso chose to stay with Riis.

“He found me,” Basso said. “He has always believed in me.”