Robert Gesink raced during the dark days of doping - His opinion his clear: "Cycling today is much cleaner"
Cycling
Robert Gesink is a rider that turned pro in 2007 and retired in 2024. Throughout his years in the peloton, he has seen the sport become much clearer, assuring that in a recent interview where he tackled the topic frankly.
Gesink turned pro during Rabobank's doping days
“When I joined the professional peloton, doping was the order of the day,” Gesink said to Bahamontes. The Dutchman was part of the Rabobank team in his debut year, the very same in which teammate Michael Rasmussen was removed from the Tour de France whilst leading it in the final week. The Dane had his contract ended immediately with the team and was suspended for two years due to lying about his whereabouts; whilst after his career he admitted to undergoing several performance enhancing results.
“I was already part of the team, but I wasn't in the Tour squad when they dropped Rasmussen from the race in 2007. Those were certainly not the best years. There was a lot of mistrust, envy, and uncertainty. Every time someone achieved good results, the others immediately thought ‘he's found something new'.”
Others such as Michael Boogerd and Thomas Dekker also marked, for the worst reasons, that period of the team that is currently the Visma structure. Gesink was part of it throughout his whole career, and at first he was often tempted to follow the same path so as to achieve the same results.
“Instead of training harder, people also resorted to performance-enhancing drug. As a young cyclist, I sometimes thought, ‘if I want to become that good, I'll have to follow their example'. Fortunately, the people around me helped me stay on the right path.”
Robert Gesink racing for Visma
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Cleaner cycling, but not fully
Gesink went on to achieve a lot during his career, including the GP de Québec and GP de Montréal, winning a stage at the Vuelta a España in 2016 and finishing on five different occasions in the Top10 of Grand Tours (two of them at the Tour de France).
His career could've turned out very differently if at a young age he would've taken mentorship from riders that would later be busted and suspended for doping.
"Michael Boogerd could have easily taken me under his wing during my first training camp, and I could have followed him wholeheartedly, because deep down I ardently wanted to be as good as him," Gesink admits.
In the 2010's, performances in cycling have lowered significantly, with widespread suspicions slowly coming down after decades of hardships for the sport's image. Over the past few years there has been a lot of speculation due to the dramatic increase in performances and climbing times, something Gesink does not attribute to a widespread return to prohibited performance enhancing methods.
"Cycling today is much cleaner," he argues. "Although, of course, there will always be people who cheat."
Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
Beyond editorial work, he has been closely involved in the expansion and coordination of CyclingUpToDate’s wider network, helping establish and support sister platforms across multiple languages. This includes ongoing collaboration with CiclismoAlDia (Spanish), CiclismoAtual (Portuguese), WielrennenUpToDate (Dutch), and RadsportAktuell (German), contributing to a shared editorial vision and consistent international coverage.
He also helps oversee editorial governance across the network, setting standards for accuracy and consistency and coordinating updates or corrections when needed.
Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
Within 18 months of launch, he helped grow CyclingUpToDate’s English-language platform into one of the most-read cycling news websites, built entirely from the ground up. As both a professional journalist and lifelong cycling enthusiast, his focus remains on delivering accurate, timely, and well-contextualized coverage.
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