Apologies if this has been covered in the lengthy "what's wrong Jan" thread......which seems to focus on there being something wrong with Ullrich.
I don't necessarily think there was anything majorly wrong with Jan, though the crash cannot have helped. I don't think Jan was bad.....it's just that Armstrong was too good.
If you look at the stage times, aside from Armstrong and Zabrinskie who went earlier in better conditions, everyone else is in a heap between a minute(ish) and a minute and a half behind.
What killed Jan was starting second last, but if you think about it, if other riders had started in that position, Armstrong would have passed everybody(Landis, Cancellara, Leipheimer, McGee, Rogers, Basso etc....) and would almost have caught Vinokourov and Hincapie.
I don't necessarily think there was anything majorly wrong with Jan, though the crash cannot have helped. I don't think Jan was bad.....it's just that Armstrong was too good.
If you look at the stage times, aside from Armstrong and Zabrinskie who went earlier in better conditions, everyone else is in a heap between a minute(ish) and a minute and a half behind.
What killed Jan was starting second last, but if you think about it, if other riders had started in that position, Armstrong would have passed everybody(Landis, Cancellara, Leipheimer, McGee, Rogers, Basso etc....) and would almost have caught Vinokourov and Hincapie.