Libertine Seguros said:You do recall that the reason Cadel got labelled unfairly with the wheelsucker tag from 2009-2011 was that he lost several GCs he could have won due to doing it in the period up to 2009? It's not like you didn't support Cuddles back then.
If you want to argue that wheelsucking is not an admirable way to win a bike race, I will agree with you. If you want to argue that Cadel Evans has been unfairly labelled a wheelsucker at any point since he won the rainbow jersey, I will agree with you. If you want to argue that Simon Gerrans will never be a better cyclist than Cadel Evans, I will agree with you.
But if you want to say that you have seen wheelsucking as producing unworthy victors, yet have been so upset about the GCs that Evans lost in his Lotto days, I will scratch my head and admit confusion.
I rememeber that period before his rainbow jersey too, and the "consensus" on here was also very unfair on Cadel:
2007 TDF: Could barely hold Contador and Rassmusens wheels in the mountains until he popped on PdB. Not Evans fault, why? - discuss elsewhere. How can you not wheelsuck when you can barely hold wheels in the Pyrenees. Heroic effort by Evans to almost get back to AC on the Aubisque to minimise his losses.
2008 TDF: Crashed on stage 9 and had to carry those injuries through the Tour - not Evan's fault. An even more heroic effort to carry those injuries for half the Tour against the relative strengths of Saxo Vs Lotto.
2009 Vuelta: His team screwed up: Not Evans fault.
Sure he gained self confidence after his WC victory but you can't blame Evans loss of several GTs prior to then on his preference to wheel suck.
As far as Gerrans is concerned, Jelantik's comment sums it up well.