Is Jan Ullrich the biggest waste of talent that the cycling world has ever seen? The frustration comes not from his victories, which are lofty when seen in a vacuum and include a Tour de France, a Tour of Spain, a Tour de Suisse, and the gold medal from the 2000 Olympic road race. But it is the fact that over and over again, he has failed to make a race that his great talent clearly would allow. Everyone will point to his five second places in the Tour, and say "well, if he wasn't racing against Lance Armstrong, he would be won three more tours!!" But he
was racing against Lance, and if you can't beat your biggest opponent, you don't deserved to win. And the thing is, he hasn't even been close in any of his second places. Let's look at them:
1996- Jan's first tour and his first stage win in the last time trial. He was supporting Bjarne Riis, and couldn't be expected to go for the win, especially as Riis had showed that he was superior in the mountains. So we give him a pass for this year.
1998 - Second place to Marco Pantani. This is the Festiva affair tour, and you could almost give the entire race a big asterisk. But my feeling was always that although Festiva was kicked out, taking out Richard Virenque and Alex Zulle, Virenque probably would not have been able to go for the GC due to the superior time-trialists in the race and would have started his tactic of solely going for a stage win and the polka-dot jersey a year soon than he did. As for Zulle, he probably would have been too tired from the efforts he made in the Giro to be a factor. Of course, both were drug-snorting cheats, and should have been thrown out on their asses. The loss of the Spanish teams also did not have a profound effect on the GC, as who really cares who comes in between 5th and 10th place? This Tour did show the Jan that we would come to know: strong in the time trials, okay in the mountains, big screw-up somewhere that ruins his race. Ullrich won both time trials, stayed with the leaders in the Pyrenees and the Alps (he even won a stage into Albertville) and totally blew up on Les Deux Alpes, losing the jersey to Pantani. Ullrich had started the year overweight, and although he looked to be in shape during the Tour, he clearly didn't have the form to survive a cold rainy day in the high mountains. It was our indication that Jan might not be the next great Tour rider.
2000 - This was the year that Ullrich, Armstrong, and Pantani, the last 3 Tour winners, were suppose to fight it out for the victory. But Pantani, who was gifted one stage win by Lance and outright won another, abandoned and was never seen again at Le Tour. Ullrich, on the other hand, began his now patented strategy of "sitting on Armstrong's wheel, acting like I am a real threat, until Lance puts down the hammer and I get dropped like a rock." He was dropped on Hautacam, dropped on Ventoux, dropped on Courchevel. The only mountain that he gained time was on the Joux Plane, and that was because Armstrong had a hunger knock. Add to that the fact that Ullrich only gained around a minute and a half, and the basic truth that Ullrich had been a non-entity the entire first part of the year, but was able to go out and have a great second half, including winning the Olympic race, and you begin to see the wasting of amazing talent.
2001 - The highlight year of Ullrich's failure to ever challenge Armstrong. This is the year of the look, but there is more to Ullrich's shortcomings than just L'Alpe d'Huez. He lost a minute in the next day's mountain time trial. He was dropped on the climb of Plateau de Bonascre, and on the next stage he was dropped like a sack of potatoes up the Pla d'Adet. He probably would have been left behind on the last stage up Luz Ardiden if Armstrong had wanted to attack. Here was Ullrich, probably in the best shape of his life, better than 1997, and yet he always lost time to Armstrong when it mattered. It was the typical Ullrich experience. Get suckered by Armstrong's acting on the stage to the L'Alpe and burn out your team trying to drop Lance. Crash on a downhill section on the stage to Pla d'Adet. Lose the final time trial of the Tour, even though you are suppose to be better at the discipline than Lance. Granted, Jan was clearly better than everybody else in the Tour that year. But he did not make one serious attack on Armstrong the entire Tour, and that was a clear waste of his abilities. Ullrich might not have the ability to attack on the mountains like a climber, but he showed in '97 and '98 that he could push a tempo that could drop everybody unless you were on great form. Induran had that great diesel engine, a weapon that he used to great effect in the first mountain stages in 1994 and 1995. Where were the accelerations by Ullrich in 2001? There were none, and another year was wasted by Ullrich.
2002 - Of course, Ullrich did not race this year. But this shows how much Ullrich didn't care or respect his sport or his profession. You can't fault Ullrich for the knee injury that was the official reason why he did not ride that year. Or can you? The truth is that Ullrich during these years, the prime of his profession, did not take care of himself during the off-season. Then, he would try to make up time by killing himself to drop weight and get his form back up from the pitiful depth he allowed it to fall. Is it no wonder that he hurt his knee with all this additional strain that he himself is to blame? Then, after he suffers the knee injury, what does he do? Does he try to work on his rehab, hoping to make a wonderful recovery? No, he first wrecks his Porsche into a bike stand and knocks over several bicycles after drinking, and thereafter loses his license. And then he gets busted in an out-of-competition drug test for recreation drugs, taking a pill that someone gave him at a nightclub. This behavior was by a professional cyclist, who as a group after 1998 have to be the most careful of any athlete as to what they put in their bodies. Add to this that even Lance called Ullrich the most talented cyclist in the world, and you can see the waste. Lance's coach Chris Carmichael said after the Tour that year that "The fact is, Lance is so strong that he doesn't have a real adversary. He doesn't have to give his maximum. And you've never seen the real Lance." Ahem, and you have Ullrich to thank for that.
2003 - The one year during Lance's reign you saw a truly attacking Ullrich, outside of maybe this year. Ullrich had been canned by Telekom, and was now shacking up with Team Coast. Maybe it was because he was with this low-rent outfit that Ullrich came alive, because he actually had something to prove and he wasn't in the suffocating womb of Team Telekom. Also, Lance was dealing with a number of problems, both physical and emotional, and was clearly at his weakest. Of course, this didn't stop Jan from sucking on the first day in the mountains up the L'Alpe d'Huez. But he got stronger and had a great ride in the first time trial, taking a minute and a half out of Armstrong. He attacked the next day on the climb up the Plateau de Bonascre, although his big attack only gain him 7 seconds. But at least he was attacking. And he showed great class in waiting for Lance, Armstong's thoughts on the matter notwithstanding. And he went all out in the last time trial, even though it was in a driving rainstorm and he ended up wiping out near the end of the stage. Ullrich earned an "A" for effort this year, and this was clearly his best tour since 1997. But this year also highlights the fact that Ullrich didn't put in this level of effort in previous years against Armstrong.
2004-2005 - These years were basically the same plotline, in that we saw Ullrich outclassed at every turn. Watch Ullrich get beat (or even passed) in the first time trial. Watch T-Mobile lose time in the team time trial. Watch Ullrich lose the wheel on the last mountain in the first day in the mountains. Watch Ullrich take a backseat to Basso as Armstrong's primary rival. Watch Ullrich try to salvage his tour by winning the last time trial, only to lose to Lance by a few seconds. Watch Ullrich basically admit that the only way he could beat Lance is if Armstrong was riding a twenty-year-old Huffy. In tennis shoes. With one hand tied behind his back. And then only if Ullrich "could get my diesel engine going."
So now Ullrich has big hair, and thinks that with the fairly non-mountainous Tour this year and Armstrong hanging out with Howard Stern on Sirius full-time, he will finally win that second Tour. Sorry to say it will not happen. The biggest waste of talent the modern cycling world has ever seen is not going to be able to challenge the new, hungry generation such as Basso (the big favorite), Landis, Levi, and Valverde. The Kaiser Roll's time has come and gone, and all he can do now is pick up the sympathy vote. Goodbye, Jan, it has been fun.
