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Is Philippe Gilbert Doping?

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May 26, 2010
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del1962 said:
So Phil was not as good at BMC unlike Greg, makes no sense to be, but I'm just a bot

Or maybe as previously mentioned he was off corticosteroids to give his body a break and therefore lacked that extra performance.

It may have been a longterm plan of his and Lefevere's for Gilbert to 'sit' out a few seasons to let his body recuperate then finish his career on a high at QuickieSteppie. Of course no one told BMC :D
 
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The Hegelian said:
meat puppet said:
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.

If a race where people start attacking from like 95k to go is boring to you I wonder what you think of races like the FW or MSR.
 
Jul 21, 2016
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The Hegelian said:
meat puppet said:
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.

Agreed. I was surprised to see the almost orgasmic praise for this ride too. It was an absurd performance and I was hoping it would be punished by the inevitable catching by GVA and Sagan, but unfortunately that didn't happen.

I think yourself or maybe someone else mentioned a kind of weird line beyond which these doped performances just become too unbelievable to enjoy. I've felt that way for years now, and can never logically justify where that line is and why I enjoy watching some and just laugh at others. I suppose some suspension of disbelief is necessary and Gilbert's ride was just too laughably doped for me to have any.
 
To clarify: attacking from far out, muy bien, bring it on. RVV was quite entertaining before the superman escape, much like fmk rol described above. However, it was plainly laughable from the kwaremont on. Not unlike the ladies Olympic 10000m WR last summer by Almaz Ayana.

Skimming the road race forum comments it is as though many if not most have an appetite for these dominant stunts from the superstar riders.
 
How long was GVA on the ground? He might have caught phil even without sagan had he not decked it. GVA did the lion's share of the work in the final chase and still found energy to win the sprint. And without Tommeke's mechanicals, it seems quite possible that Tom would have had a free ride to a glorious victory. If Phil had been caught (IMO pretty likely without that Sagan crash) he'd be no less doped but it would certainly attract less attention. Wonder if he went full genius just to set up Boonen, and assumed he wouldn't garner suspicion as long as he was in a domestique's role.
 
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Forever The Best said:
Extremely strong. I think he would have won even if they hadn't gone all out from the Muur. He did what, paced the peloton before the Muur, made the split, worked a lot before Kwaremont and then just crushed Vanmarcke et al. Then he kept his pace all the way to Kwaremont and even though he slowed down in the end it was a ridiculous ride!
But boy, he is extremely entertaining to watch when he is on form. Today was why he is one of my favourite riders!
And his ride was obviously not normal. Ibarguren makes wonders :D
 
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proffate said:
Also, did anyone see where the heck Terpstra came from? Did he just jump across from the main group on the Kwaremont/Paterberg? How big was that gap? Terpstra wasn't even in the intermediate chase with Greipel et al.
Yup, just popped up out of nowhere and had enough in the tank to follow GVA up the Paterberg. I assume he breezed past the chase group on the Kwaremont.

Quickstep put two guys on the podium, with domestique Trentin narrowly missing the top 10, while Boonen, Stybar and Lampaert were defeated by mechanicals.
 
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Gung Ho Gun said:
proffate said:
Also, did anyone see where the heck Terpstra came from? Did he just jump across from the main group on the Kwaremont/Paterberg? How big was that gap? Terpstra wasn't even in the intermediate chase with Greipel et al.
Yup, just popped up out of nowhere and had enough in the tank to follow GVA up the Paterberg. I assume he breezed past the chase group on the Kwaremont.

Quickstep put two guys on the podium, with domestique Trentin narrowly missing the top 10, while Boonen, Stybar and Lampaert were defeated by mechanicals.
They obviously tried a new motor, probably not quite ready yet, hence the "mechanicals". But very strong when it works, see Terpstra and Gilbert.
 
Mar 13, 2009
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Valv.Piti said:
So its obvious Phil didn't have that much motivation at BMC, I guess both to train but also dope. 70% doping, 30% training?

false dichotomy, you need to train at 100%, but doping is the primary arbiter in performance.

ask 131313, he was a poster on here, he rode in the US climbing tour in New Mexico,

here was my post
blackcat said:
Peter, just p'raps you should not enter The Clinic. Think of it as some gestalt of Dark Web and Chatroulette!

I dont think an athlete who dopes is necessarily a bad character. I dont know them, so I cannot make a personal judgement. I think PEDs and doping is a value neutral matter. Bad people dont dope, good people dope, so said the poster 131313 who is a pro on a domestic team in America, and Tour of Gila in 2009 when Armstrong came back, on the Queen stage, Lance went backwards, and 131313 passed him up the climb on the queen stage, within 2 months, Lance came third in the Tour, beating Wiggins out of fourth and the podium spot. That would have been Garmin Sharp I think. not that it matters.

I am actually quite empathic to Wiggins and his life narrative. His old man was never a father and left the family when he was barely the baby out of his mothers womb. So he had to do it tough. But I can still laugh at the parts of Froome and Wiggins and this US Postal second iteration that is Sky. All the continental pros dope too, all the Frenchies do. Does not make them poor people. Like the Australians, South Africans, and New Zealanders. My metric is, if you are at the pointy end of the peloton in the selective races, you, prima facie, are charging on some enhancement pharmacy or technique.

Have a look at my last post, or second last post, in the Adam Hansen thread, that will be a better pov from where i am coming from.

but shur, you can think i am a cnut, but there is the possibility for a more enlightening appreciation
 
May 6, 2016
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So there is your answer to "Is Philippe Gilbert Doping"? You have to ask, would a guy who is doping skip the Paris-Roubaix to rest and recover? The answer is no.
 
Feb 21, 2017
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Zypherov said:
So there is your answer to "Is Philippe Gilbert Doping"? You have to ask, would a guy who is doping skip the Paris-Roubaix to rest and recover? The answer is no.

I'm not following your logic.
 
Sep 6, 2016
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Obviously I believe Phil is doping, but it was at least a bit refreshing to see him struggling on the Paterberg. Wasn't as comical as some other performances.
 
Jul 21, 2016
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Durden93 said:
Obviously I believe Phil is doping, but it was at least a bit refreshing to see him struggling on the Paterberg. Wasn't as comical as some other performances.

I formally reject your definition of comedy.
His performance was as comical as comical can be.
No other performance has surpassed it's comedy value. :)
 
Feb 21, 2017
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I think some banhammers may have been used, but I'm not sure. Maybe an admin can elaborate (or not). But yeah, sniper springs to mind as a notable absentee.
 
Jul 21, 2016
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GraftPunk said:
I think some banhammers may have been used, but I'm not sure. Maybe an admin can elaborate (or not). But yeah, sniper springs to mind as a notable absentee.

Yeah Sniper is missed, and lots of others too. It's pretty dead at the moment.
 
Mar 13, 2009
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Dan2016 said:
The Clinic is a ghost town recently.
Where's everyone gone?

come on, pasty albinos gotta hit up the Canaries in spring to work on tan lines, the bikini line upkeep, and a chaser of 800 ml red cells spun off packed in metrical volume.

o2 ftw

hema hema hema

u reckon that is the right hue, not yet coagulated like stefan matschiner's bernhard kohl's bloodbags bb in the ryanair overhead storage from vien to Paris 1 airport.

moral of the story, dont fly cheap mick
 
Zypherov said:
So there is your answer to "Is Philippe Gilbert Doping"? You have to ask, would a guy who is doping skip the Paris-Roubaix to rest and recover? The answer is no.
Yes, maybe he's skipping PR merely to rest and recover better, but that would still be a perfectly good reason to skip it while doping. Regardless, there's ample precedent of dopers skipping particular races specifically to avoid in-competition tests so that they can dope that much better for their next objective.

In other words, Gilbert's skipping PR tells us zilch one way or the other.
 

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