Lance Armstrong met in France with Christophe Basson to apologize – and the woman, whose life he tried to destroy, considers his apologetic remorse spree to be nothing but bollocks

Christophe Bassons, who has won a single stage in the Dauphiné Libéré, is perhaps more known for his affiliations to the 1998 Festina scandal. His role? He was the sole rider on the squad who repeatedly refused to dope. Allegedly he even turned down a 270,000 franc-per-month raiser, offered to him if he would start using EPO…

Bassons competed in the subsequent 1999 Tour de France, and at the same time he wrote a column on doping for Le Parisien. During the columns he revealed that doping had far from disappeared, thus contrasting ASO and others, who tried to label the Tour de France as the “Tour of Renewal.” Bassons also stated that many riders in the peloton had been surprised by Lance Armstrong’s post-cancer return and his unnatural performances.

As a consequence the Frenchman became a pariah in the Tour, ignored and rejected even by his own teammates, and was eventually confronted by  Armstrong on the Alpe d’Huez stage. In 2012 he told BBC Radio 5 about the incident:

“He grabbed me by the shoulder, because he knew that everyone would be watching, and he knew that at that moment, he could show everyone that he was the boss. He stopped me, and he said what I was saying wasn't true, what I was saying was bad for cycling, that I mustn’t say it, that I had no right to be a professional cyclist, that I should quit cycling, that I should quit the Tour. He finished by saying fuck you.”

That evening after the stage, Armstrong said on the French station TF1 that Bassons was wrong.

During the evening, after the stage, Armstrong stated to French TF1 that Bassons was simply wrong and misinformed.

“His accusations aren't good for cycling, for his team, for me, for anybody. If he thinks cycling works like that, he's wrong and he would be better off going home,” Armstrong said.

Two days ago Armstrong met with Bassons at a restaurant in Paris to apologize.

“When I stopped the bike in 2001, I was a victim of psychological harassment,” Bassons said, according to Le Monde.

“If this is how you've felt at the time, I really apologize,” Armstrong returned.

Apologetic remorse or hidden agendas?

The meeting at the restaurant in Paris supposedly helped two individuals. Bassons because he finally got the American to apologize face to face, and Armstrong because he is a humble decent guy, who just wants to make the world a better place… Errr!

Is that really what Armstrong’s apologetic remorse spree of “I am sorry” is about? He has apologized to quite a few people recently, and might it just be possible that he has hidden agendas?

Some seem to think so. Remember Betsy Andreu? The wife of Armstrong’s former teammate Frankie Andreu. The woman whose sanity Armstrong questioned, when she testified that he had admitted to using PED’s while in the hospital for cancer treatment. The person whom Armstrong had his Oakly representative threaten, with the words “I hope someone breaks a baseball bat over your head.”

Betsy Andreu is far from certain that Armstrong’s apparent remorse is for real.

“Lance’s reconciliation tour, aka the I-really-want-to-compete-at-an-elite-level-again tour, is nothing more than a charade to back up his call for a version of a Truth and Reconciliation Committee that will exonerate him,” she wrote in an article for Crankpunk about a week ago.

“Nothing changes if nothing changes,” writes Andreu. “Nothing has changed with Lance. He is still desperately trying to control the narrative. The problem for him is not many are listening.”

“After Oprah, we sporadically kept in touch. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months. I was slowly beginning the painful realization that his talk was cheap,” she wrote.

“When I went to Austin in April as part of a an anti-doping panel, Lance and I had agreed to meet. I was skeptical he would actually follow through. “Are you going to skedaddle when I get to town?” I emailed him. “Please,” was his response, “I’ll be here.”

“Well, as Frankie predicted, he backed out. He and the others were right: he used me. I’m embarrassed to say I fell for it. What benefit it had been for him to have his most ardent and vocal critic willing to give him a chance. In doing so, I kept quiet and I didn’t call him out on his lack of action. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt when I’d talk to journalists.

“Like so many Lance used for his own benefit, I too became a pawn in his reconciliation tour.”

Has Armstrong changed one bit?