Where's Jan ?



rejobako...

old saying...the harder i work the luckier i get. dont know who said it, but particularly true in GC cycling id say.

perhaps it was bikehandling skills; due to practice, work volume and skill, not luck.

he was lucky in the fact Jan has refused to ever do the same amount of work.
 
limerickman said:
For sure Merckx went out with one objective - to win at all times.
Today, Armstrong and Ullrich compete not necessarily to win each race that they enter.

In the context of the TDF, Merckx raced the TDF 7 times and won it 5 times.

Merckx won 35 stages and held the yellow jersey for 90 days.
Throw in the fact that he won a combination of classement jerseys during his five wins (and held classement jerseys simultaneously), his record is phenomenal.

I hear the case that you're making for Armstrong. It's a worthy case.
7 wins from 11 starts is nothing to be sniffed at.

I doubt anyone will ever equal his performance at the 1969 TdF. Merckx won the Tour, won six stages, won all three jerseys (and he would have won the white, had it been available), and his margin of winning was, if I remember correctly, over seventeen minutes. He attacked constantly, even after he had built an insurmountable lead. He absolutely obliterated the field. At the age of 23.
 
limerickman said:
Ullrich just needs to get the miles in at this point of the season.
We've seen the shot of the T-Mobile site - he's not overweight in those shots.

The fact that he has decided to take part in the ToR and he stated his intention to do the Giro, is positive on two counts.

On the first count, in previous years his riding at this time of the year consisted of training in Switzerland with T Steinhauser.
Riding in competition - even if he's not going for overall GC at Romandie - is far better preparation.

On the second count, Ullrich's choice of Romandie indicates that his knee has
healed.
If your knee is anyway dodgy - Romandie is the last place you should be cycling in terms of climbs/mountains.
If he can complete Romandie and then complete the Giro : it will be game on.

Great to see Der Kaiser back!!!!!!!

It is great to see Ulle back and I will definitely be following the race in Romandie. I am very glad that he is riding the Giro. I think that will be good for him (and for the race). For a rider of his talent and experience, he can put his form together by the TdF.

Nonetheless, one can't help wonder what we would all be thinking if he would show the competitive spirit and hunger for cycling that could be demonstrated by trying a few other races. Much of his main competition at the Tour has been racing (and winning) for weeks.
 
Chris Brewer, person maintaining thepaceline, has this to say about JU:

".. while many - many - eyes will be on a rider who is just now starting his first race of the season: Tour de France co-favorite Jan Ullrich. Everyone wants to see if "Der Jan" has any semblance of form as rumors have been flowing fast and furious about his 2006 season, or lack thereof. A nagging knee injury, a recent comment by CSC Director Bjarne Riis that Ullrich's form is "catastrophic" - to say Ullrich will be under the microscope will be a major understatement." :p
 
As I have stated ,I have it on good authority that Jan will not push himself on this first race.
So do not try and read too much into the outcome.
As far as Riis.... he knows ,or should know that true cyclist speak with their legs and not their mouth.
 
jhuskey said:
As I have stated ,I have it on good authority that Jan will not push himself on this first race.
So do not try and read too much into the outcome.
As far as Riis.... he knows ,or should know that true cyclist speak with their legs and not their mouth.

Agreed.
It is absolutely logical that a rider coming back from injury doesn't push himself too hard, too soon.
 
I assume JU didn't push himself (or for his sake, I hope that was the case). He got beaten by DC again, only this time it was a different DC rider.

Savoldelli 4:27:32
JU 4:53:48

That difference, in a measley 3.4 km ;) According to the official website's written commentary, Il Falco touched a security barrier certain 10s of meters before the stage finish, and yet still beat everybody. This year may have been the first time Il Falco got wind tunnel tested, because of his collarbone injury last year when he was scheduled to test. :p

Here's a picture of JU. The tummy and face don't look so trim, do they? :p

http://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/9789.0.html
 
Ricardo29 said:
rejobako...

old saying...the harder i work the luckier i get. dont know who said it, but particularly true in GC cycling id say.

perhaps it was bikehandling skills; due to practice, work volume and skill, not luck.

he was lucky in the fact Jan has refused to ever do the same amount of work.
"Luck is the residue of design."

-Branch Rickey

;)
 
musette said:
I assume JU didn't push himself (or for his sake, I hope that was the case). He got beaten by DC again, only this time it was a different DC rider.

Savoldelli 4:27:32
JU 4:53:48

That difference, in a measley 3.4 km ;) According to the official website's written commentary, Il Falco touched a security barrier certain 10s of meters before the stage finish, and yet still beat everybody. This year may have been the first time Il Falco got wind tunnel tested, because of his collarbone injury last year when he was scheduled to test. :p

Here's a picture of JU. The tummy and face don't look so trim, do they? :p

http://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/9789.0.html
I just came across that pic of Jan on the Velo-news site..... I hope it is just the angle of the camera, but itsure looks bad..
 
JU was beaten badly by his own domestiqueS (note plural there) ;)

E Mazzoleni, placed 19th on stage
O Sevilla, 41st
B Kohl, 67th
S Davis, 68th
S Honchar, 70th

Then JU is 90th, out of 163 (two cyclists did not get times).

Among the people who beat JU were the following DC riders, in addition to Il Falco of course:

J van den Broeck -- shown pretty good ITT form this year
G Mikhailov -- a run of the mill DC domestique :eek:
F Beppu -- the rider that Bruyneel hired to respond to DC's request for a Japanese rider :eek:
P Padrnos
 
musette said:
JU was beaten badly by his own domestiqueS (note plural there) ;)

E Mazzoleni, placed 19th on stage
O Sevilla, 41st
B Kohl, 67th
S Davis, 68th
S Honchar, 70th

Then JU is 90th, out of 163 (two cyclists did not get times).

Among the people who beat JU were the following DC riders, in addition to Il Falco of course:

J van den Broeck -- shown pretty good ITT form this year
G Mikhailov -- a run of the mill DC domestique :eek:
F Beppu -- the rider that Bruyneel hired to respond to DC's request for a Japanese rider :eek:
P Padrnos


That is exactly as some of us predicted and expected. As previously stated,I would not read too much into the results.
 
I don't think you can read anything into JU performance during this tour, most likely he will just sit in the grupetto and get some racing kilometers in his legs, he might do something in the last stage TT but nothing else. Seems like Il Falco is on form at the moment though.
 
The only good thing for Ullrich is that his also famous about his ITT skills team-mate Sergiy Honchar was only 70th.

Anyway 23 secs in such a distance are huge...
 
Eldrack said:
I don't think you can read anything into JU performance during this tour, most likely he will just sit in the grupetto and get some racing kilometers in his legs, he might do something in the last stage TT but nothing else. Seems like Il Falco is on form at the moment though.


You are correct. Either way this is what Jan said he would do. Take it easy.
 
bobke said:
Well I think you have to take each case on its own.
Bobby J might have been top ten in the Tour but he made top three because half the race went home. He admits himself that that created soooo much pressure on him. He cracked, e.g. crashing in the ITT Metz 1999 when Armstrong was catching people and would have caught him.

If you look at the riders in CSC Julich Voigt Basso etc its like the good boys of cycling. I know it looks bad with Tyler and all but it was when he was on Phonak that things went bad.

We'll never know, but good doctor, what would the magic cocktails be that they could get away with and not have everyone suspiscious...although one could interpret a lot of riders comments after the race as suspcicious given how hard CSC rode...actually rode the race into the ground. No one had anything left at all.


Back to the thread, Jan will come in bottom half in the prologue tomorrow, not as bad as Lance at Psir Nice but close.

90th rider out of 165.
Wow.
I was basically right, bottom half more or less.
He looks very overweight in his pictures, definitely heavier than all the training pics in Mallorca in Feb or Jan.

So no wonder he is having trouble with his knee, extra 15 pounds.

Right now I think the smart money in the TdF goes to Basso and Landis. Jan may not even podium at this rate. I mean look, he has only 9 weeks, this is MISSION IMPOSSIBLE right now.
 
As stated earlier, Ullrich wasn't going to try to blast it in his first race of the season.

Savoldelli I would expect to be riding well at this stage of the season - given that he has to try to defend his Giro title in little over a weeks time.
If he wasn't riding well now - then he'd have very serious issues given the proximity of the Giro.
 
wolfix said:
I just came across that pic of Jan on the Velo-news site..... I hope it is just the angle of the camera, but itsure looks bad..
9789.14504.f.jpg
But I am pulling out of my funk. If he does ride the Giro, he will shed the weight and get into form. As long as he can stay healthy, it should come together for the tour.
 
musette said:
It's true, he is fat. But the weight will come off in the mts. of spain and italy. If he can just plug along through the Giro, the form will come.