Is Philippe Gilbert Doping?

[zlev11]

QS need to sign Vanendert next year and see if they can get him to ride like 2011 again too

 

[deValtos]

Re:

Funny how this thread was started in response to Cancellara. 6 years later, and Gilbert completes the 50km solo in Vlaanderen that Fabian tried and failed back in 2011, two weeks before this thread. Full circle.

50km?? Bah, that's for amateurs.

Gilbert sits on the front of the peloton with 100km to go for a good 3km on the flat before attacking on the Kapelmur and doing some big turns for 40km before then doing 60km solo.

Canc ain't got *** on dis guy.

 

[TeflonDub]

Re: Re:

Funny how this thread was started in response to Cancellara. 6 years later, and Gilbert completes the 50km solo in Vlaanderen that Fabian tried and failed back in 2011, two weeks before this thread. Full circle.

50km?? Bah, that's for amateurs.

Gilbert sits on the front of the peloton with 100km to go for a good 3km on the flat before attacking on the Kapelmur and doing some big turns for 40km before then doing 60km solo.

Canc ain't got **** on dis guy.

It was a very controlled descent from a cruising altitude of keeping the gap at just under a minute, to letting 15 seconds of air out of the tyres from 8km down to 6km, and then to hold it there at half a minute on approach, before coming to a stop and holding the wheels overhead to show that they weren't still spinning. Excellent performance. And I mean 'performance'. Here are the gaps.

35k/57"
10k/53"
8/52"
7/45"
6/39"
5/36"
4/35"
3/33"
2/30"

 

[thehog]

The chase was stunted but the fact that Gilbert attacked from so far out and held the minute plus over everyone else for 70km+ was total insanity... screamed major doping.

 

[hfer07]

Re:

Funny how this thread was started in response to Cancellara. 6 years later, and Gilbert completes the 50km solo in Vlaanderen that Fabian tried and failed back in 2011, two weeks before this thread. Full circle.

just to be clear:
Cancellara = World time trial champion 4 times. Gilbert= ain't even a decent T. Ter.
setting aside the Sagan/GVA crash and whether they could have caught him, Gilbert's performance was E.T. in my book.

what matters here is the so called "resurrection" element which depicts Gilbert as a rider whose last years were so dreadful and disappointing that many hinted his best years were behind him, but then his switch to OPQS surprisingly "brings the best of Gilbert" yet again, in such spectacular fashion.

 

[The Hegelian]

That was as alien as I have seen since the Giro 2015....actually it was late 90's stuff.

 

[Jancouver]

I think there was quite a bit of drafting behind the TV/photo motorbikes but regardless, when a 35 year old average TTrialer can pull the pack for 50km and then hold them off for another 55km, you know he got some amazing beet juice flowing in his system.

I totally agree that all doping should be legal. It makes for a great spectacle.

 

[joe_papp]

Haven't been to the Clinic in what seems like forever, but you're darn right I was drawn here today after watching Gilbert's extraterrestrial ride to win Flanders, and totally am not surprised this thread was #1. lol

When was the last time PhilGil performed like that?

 

[The Hegelian]

Re:

Haven't been to the Clinic in what seems like forever, but you're darn right I was drawn here today after watching Gilbert's extraterrestrial ride to win Flanders, and totally am not surprised this thread was #1. lol

When was the last time PhilGil performed like that?

Never. Punching up the Cauberg ain't quite akin to putting out 60+ km's of such horsepower that the entire Flanders field is vanquished. Don't forget, we're talking the absolute peak of the classics season ~ everyone who counts is at peak condition....and he just destroyed them.

I'll be very interested to see if anyone will come here to defend that as believable.

 

[Saint Unix]

Re:

Haven't been to the Clinic in what seems like forever, but you're darn right I was drawn here today after watching Gilbert's extraterrestrial ride to win Flanders, and totally am not surprised this thread was #1. lol

When was the last time PhilGil performed like that?

Never mind PhilGil. When was the last time anyone performed like that? One of the most epic solo performances of all time.

 

[GraftPunk]

A pretty grotesque display, one would think it would send alarm bells sounding a la Landis.

 

[The Hegelian]

Good points.

I think I'm pretty tolerant of the excesses of the sport ~ I'm certainly not after some moral utopia of clean noble champions.

But: I don't like to be insulted with performances that are just utterly ridiculous. There's some kind of weird line somewhere, whereby if you stay on the right sight of it, the whole show retains some measure of plausibility. You watch the show, and you loosely assume there's a lot of dodgy stuff going on, but you can watch it.

Gilbert didn't just cross that line, he injected it and then dropped it like a stone on the Paterberg.

Grotesque is the right word.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Re:

I totally agree that all doping should be legal. It makes for a great spectacle.

?? That already happened. 1990's. My favorite early example is the Riis grand tour win.

Everything is just crazy with a bunch of riders that have never been, inexplicably end up on WT podium.

 

[IndianCyclist]

best Alien mode after 2011

 

[MarkvW]

Peroxide-hair-man

 

[Robert5091]

Go full Di Luca and carpe diem with some Non, je ne regrette rien afterwords ... I see a book deal and screenplay before me ... :lol:

Well, seem to have done the first bit ... :lol:

 

[TommyGun]

If my calculations are correct, Gilbert rode the last 55 km solo at an average speed of around 41.5 km/h: on a such a rough and hilly terrain, this is just insane, especially after 200 km already...

 

[proffate]

sean kelly can't say "phillipe gilbert"

 

[meat puppet]

I sorta get the entertainment point of view argument that barring obvious excesses doping is good for the spectacle. Don't agree with it, but that is beside the point. But was Gilbert good for the spectacle yesterday? To me it was just a dull prolonged coronation, a vulgar display of power, like the cance and Boonen solos were.

If there were attacks left right and centre, with the situation evolving all the time, then fair play. Perhaps. Here we had one stud winching harder than groups of others for 60k. Or 95. The crashes alter not much.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Re: Re:

Gilbert's extraterrestrial ride to win Flanders

When was the last time PhilGil performed like that?

I'll be very interested to see if anyone will come here to defend that as believable.

gilbert just found a 'lil extra motorivation riding in national jersey in front of home fans........

Mark L

added the or

 

[thehog]

Re:

If my calculations are correct, Gilbert rode the last 55 km solo at an average speed of around 41.5 km/h: on a such a rough and hilly terrain, this is just insane, especially after 200 km already...

That is was. One of the all time great doped up performances. So great the camera wasn't even showing him much of the race as he was that far ahead.

 

[The Hegelian]

Re:

I sorta get the entertainment point of view argument that barring obvious excesses doping is good for the spectacle. Don't agree with it, but that is beside the point. But was Gilbert good for the spectacle yesterday? To me it was just a dull prolonged coronation, a vulgar display of power, like the cance and Boonen solos were.

If there were attacks left right and centre, with the situation evolving all the time, then fair play. Perhaps. Here we had one stud winching harder than groups of others for 60k. Or 95. The crashes alter not much.

That's exactly how I saw it too. Was actually super surprised to see so many on this forum rating it a 9 or a 10....I thought the race totally failed as a spectacle. Thought experiment: imagine if it was a Sky rider.

Maybe all-in-juiced-to-the-gills doping works better in GT's. The Mapei and Gewiss years were definitely not good for the spectacle of classics.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

To me it was just a dull prolonged coronation, a vulgar display of power, like the cance and Boonen solos were.

Would have to disagree. From the moment that Boonen glanced across at Gilbert near the base of the Muur it was entertainment. First the dozen-plus break getting away and the chess playing in the chase behind, then Gilbert going solo, then the chase from Sagan/GvA. Up until the moment that Sagan decked it, it was not a coronation, and once that bit of bad luck had happened you half expected Gilbert to somehow blow it. So, a coronation? Far from it.

WRT the doping: what I find hilarious is everyone pointing fingers at Gilbert when the real weird *** was in the Sagan/GvA chase behind. Especially GvA.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

What happened to him between 2012 and 2016?

He was on a cushy contract with BMC and didn't need to work.

Different Doctor too

But surely not better than mad Max...the doc behind LA 1.0...

Who knows how these quacks truly operate. Gilbert might have taken 3 years off the harder stuff to give his body a break or conceive children, who knows!

Could be even be a motor, anything is possible in the circus of pro cycling!

So now Max Testa is just a quack?

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

So now Max Testa is just a quack?

Yes he is a quack. Not 'just a quack' but a quack. These Doctors hardly are there for patient care, but patient performance and i doubt they care too much for their patients long term health care.

GVA is off the charts, but hey it could be the year he does his corticosteroids a la Wiggins, a la Gilbert........a la lots of riders.