What should have been a day in which the Tour de France mountain battle occupied everyone's thoughts was overshadowed by the shock news Monday Ivan Basso has testicular cancer. The 37-year-old Italian stunned the gathered media when he arrived at a press conference in Pau meant to be about his Tinkoff-Saxo team leader Alberto Contador and dropped a bombshell about his health.
"Unfortunately I have a bad announcement to give to you guys," said Basso, a former Giro d'Italia winner. "In stage number five I had a really small crash and on the crash I touched my testicle on the saddle. "For a few days I felt a small pain. Yesterday (Sunday) our doctor spoke with the doctor of the Tour and we decided to go to make a special analysis to the hospital. "The examination gave me bad news: I have a small cancer in the left testicle.
"So it's easy to understand that I have to stop and go back to Italy. Our doctor is already in contact with the specialist in Italy to fix the operation as soon as possible." Contador himself led fellow riders past and present in offering their support to Basso. "It has been a very tough day for the whole team; we never imagined something like that," said the Spaniard. "For me it has been very hard because over the last 180 days we spent 120 days together and we have been very close to each other." Movistar's Alejandro Valverde chipped in: "On behalf of the whole team we want to give him the best wishes in the world.