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Came here to post and thought I'd check a few pages back... you know that thing about him tearing up in 2011, and it looking really dodgy, well he worked with a certain doctor that year, Dr. Jose Ibarguren Taus, guess who just got added to the Quickstep staff roster...:
http://www.quickstepfloorscycling.com/en/team/staff
http://www.cyclismas.com/biscuits/so-just-who-is-dr-jose-ibarguren-taus/
noBlakes-
This old chestnut is trotted out every few years, whenever a rider does well. Yet the fact remains that Dr Ibarguren has never been convicted of any anti-doping violation. Whether that means he's innocent is another matter, but you can convict people on hearsay and speculation from internet anti-doping crusaders.
The fact that Gilbert has been winning big one day races from his neo-pro days onwards would suggest he has a modicum of natural talent.
andyp
I think you have to be really careful to look at performance as a form of proof of doping. That is what the shitheads at the clinic do, and trolls on Twitter, and use, for example, ascent times from twenty years ago against ascent times today and draw definitive conclusions from that.
So ignoring every other variable, from bike weight, bike technology, weather conditions, state of the road, and how many km they have raced getting to that climb.
I mean Gilbert rode away from an elite field and soloed to a Flanders win from 55k out. At 35 years of age. On the surface that sounds unbelievable, but Gilbert has said he didn't intend to and two significant crashes hampered the chasing efforts, taking out four main contenders in the process.
Mind its very hard to look at Valverde and not feel suspicious