"There were all kinds of inexplicable performances" - Robert Gesink talks about the ever-presence of doping in late 2000s

Robert Gesink spent 18 seasons at the professional level and during the time, he has witnessed from the first row the transformation of infamous Rabobank into Visma | Lease a Bike - the n.1 team in the world in 2023. After hanging up his bike at the end of this season, he gets to learn a new role which includes sharing funny annecdotes about his past teammates.

In the early days, at Rabobank, there were two considerable personalities active within the team, Denis Menchov and Oscar Freire. Gesink told an astonishing story about the former on the De Rode Lantaarn podcast. "Menchov always said that he was allowed to smoke one cigarette a day until the January camp. Then he would stand on the balcony and smoke a cigarette. That's where the sport comes from, haha."

Read also

"The rivalry with Jonas exists, but there is also a lot of respect" - Tadej Pogacar reflects on historic Tour de France battles with Vingegaard

There are also many anecdotes about the Spanish sprinter Freire and Gesink can easily add one to that. "Freire trained for two days at a training camp, but on the third day he had problems with his knee. Then we would come back from training and he would be playing tennis against the hotel waiter, or something."

Gesink also goes into more serious topics at the podcast. One includes his debut in 2007 - at the time when doping was still ever-present in the cycling world - and how he was on crossroads about which way would his career go:

"At that time I was quite uncertain about what the future would look like. I didn't want to go in that direction, but I didn't see much change in the meantime. There were still all kinds of inexplicable performances. I thought: what will it be like in the future? In the end I never considered it, because someone like Louis Delahaje, my trainer, simply said that we wouldn't start with that. He had a very clear opinion. I am proud of how I experienced my sport. But at that time I did think: if I continue doing it this way, I won't achieve everything I want to achieve."

Read also

ANALYSIS | Tom Pidcock drama, INEOS in decline, ITV losing the Tour de France... What’s happening to British cycling?

"After last year you can no longer say that Pidcock is still part of the 'Big 3'" - Experts analyse winter prospects of cyclocross' biggest stars