Jan Ullrich

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

You were making the claim that Ullrich would have been a total bum without doping.

Yet you provide absolutely nothing to back it up.

Der Jan und der Bjarne would have been good domestiques for Uwe Ampler.

I am the gift that just keeps on giving.

 

[Neworld]

By the way iam still waiting for the gym-rat picture.

I found this CBC video of Lance post Chemo...showing his muscular transformation. Watch the video, it is better in real time. About 9 minutes in is the short vid on Lancey. Watch until aobut 9:50, he was maxed out.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2012-2013/2012/11/lance-armstrong-master-of-spin.html

Jan...what a musclebound monster.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Der Jan und der Bjarne would have been good domestiques for Uwe Ampler.

Now it gets totally ludicrous.
By your logic: Ullrich was good only b/c he came from GDR (even tough the GDR was long dead when he begun to compete at the highest levels) and Epo/BB. Now since Ampler was a "true" GDR guy (& Friedensfahrt champ) with all the systematic super dope, he should have easily dominate the TdF. Especially since Ullrich would be at maximum a domestique for him. Now you englighten us all why Ullrich won the TdF, but Ampler was a total bust. You can´t, since your "arguments" are absurd.

OTOH, going by common sense and trusting those guys inside the peloton, it becomes clear to almost everybody (even here in the clinic) that Ullrich was a once in a million talent. That he easily wold have dominated the TdF for 10 years, b/c no high aged super responders out of nowhere (like Rijs, Armstrong, Rominger) would have spoiled the true GT rankings.

And that old adage of Ullrich being dropped in TC becomes dull. Just a little reminder: Lemond was a 100+ finisher in the Giro (such a bust never happened to Ullrich BTW), then all of a sudden destroyed the field at the TdF...

 

[MarkvW]

Now it gets totally ludicrous.
By your logic: Ullrich was good only b/c he came from GDR (even tough the GDR was long dead when he begun to compete at the highest levels) and Epo/BB. Now since Ampler was a "true" GDR guy (& Friedensfahrt champ) with all the systematic super dope, he should have easily dominate the TdF. Especially since Ullrich would be at maximum a domestique for him. Now you englighten us all why Ullrich won the TdF, but Ampler was a total bust. You can´t, since your "arguments" are absurd.

OTOH, going by common sense and trusting those guys inside the peloton, it becomes clear to almost everybody (even here in the clinic) that Ullrich was a once in a million talent. That he easily wold have dominated the TdF for 10 years, b/c no high aged super responders out of nowhere (like Rijs, Armstrong, Rominger) would have spoiled the true GT rankings.

And that old adage of Ullrich being dropped in TC becomes dull. Just a little reminder: Lemond was a 100+ finisher in the Giro (such a bust never happened to Ullrich BTW), then all of a sudden destroyed the field at the TdF...

The concept

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

OTOH, going by common sense and trusting those guys inside the peloton, it becomes clear to almost everybody (even here in the clinic) that Ullrich was a once in a million talent. That he easily wold have dominated the TdF for 10 years, b/c no high aged super responders out of nowhere (like Rijs, Armstrong, Rominger) would have spoiled the true GT rankings.

You are allowed to belief what you want, but in cycling fairytales do not exist.

In spain a lot of people still say Indurain was the greatest talent ever. When you confront those believers with the fact Indurain was working with dottore EPO since the end of 1986 you will be burned to the stake.

Jan was a talented rider, but not for the mountains.

Since you are German, do you have results of Jan age 18/22? I would be much obliged to see them.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

He was winning right from the beginning. It´s so beautiful that it even rhymes.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

You are allowed to belief what you want, but in cycling fairytales do not exist.

In spain a lot of people still say Indurain was the greatest talent ever. When you confront those believers with the fact Indurain was working with dottore EPO since the end of 1986 you will be burned to the stake.

Jan was a talented rider, but not for the mountains.

Since you are German, do you have results of Jan age 18/22? I would be much obliged to see them.

That´s why you have to ask serious qestions about your Hero (and mine back in the 80s).
I mean Ullrich wasn´t half dead (and then winning the TdF) and an expert in blood treatment like Lemond...
No, Ullrich had a gradual process which climaxed in an TdF win at a very young age (like all the great champs). Pretty normal for a natural talent of the century.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

That´s why you have to ask serious qestions about your Hero (and mine back in the 80s).
I mean Ullrich wasn´t half dead (and then winning the TdF) and an expert in blood treatment like Lemond...
No, Ullrich had a gradual process which climaxed in an TdF win at a very young age (like all the great champs). Pretty normal for a natural talent of the century.

I, again, ask you, the Ullrich expert it seems, to show me any result prior to 1996, Ullrich would be able to climb better than a Conconi product like Pantani.

Please, dont come with LeMond on here, der Jan is a likeable fellow but nowhere as talented LeMond was. O2vector was Jan's help to stardom, a VO2 max of 93 was that for LeMond.

Gradual, my @ss. Even Froome has a more gradual carreerpath.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

"Even Froome has a more gradual carreerpath"

Wow. I mean i really like Froome. But that´s wayyy over the line. I guess "Thehog" will talk about it. I assume he´s just exploding when reading the above nonsense.

Anyway, Lemond and Ullrich are in the same league, only that Ullrich didn´t come up with absurd performance swings like Lemond...

P.S.: Why should i do your research work? It´s all in the open that Ullrich won everything from the beginning. Just start reading...

 

[Bavarianrider]

I, again, ask you, the Ullrich expert it seems, to show me any result prior to 1996, Ullrich would be able to climb better than a Conconi product like Pantani.

Please, dont come with LeMond on here, der Jan is a likeable fellow but nowhere as talented LeMond was. O2vector was Jan's help to stardom, a VO2 max of 93 was that for LeMond.

Gradual, my @ss. Even Froome has a more gradual carreerpath.

You do realize that high mountains were hardly ever raced in amateur races, back then. Especially in Germany/Northern Europe.
So it's a bit hard to show you results of Ullrich in Alpe D'Huez in 1993

However, Ullrich was an elite guy in the hilly medium mountain races he competed in.
For example at age 19 in 1993 he won one of the biggest amateur stage races of that time.
Pazific Power Commonwealth Bank Tour

And as you anted some expertise, here's something for you to read.


Think about Phill Liget, but he had covered the race for Australian TV and predicted Ullrich to win the Tour de France won day.

Liget as asked about this later in an interview

Pez: I remember the days when you used to commentate on the Commonwealth Bank Classic in Australia and you were sprouting to everyone the fact that this 19 year old wonderkid named Jan Ullrich would one day win the Tour de France. How did it feel to be vindicated?

Phil: Jan was clearly the classiest bike rider around and probably still is. I never even thought about it when Jan won in 1997, but then again I predicted in 1998 that Cadel Evans would one day win the Tour – he’s getting there!

 

[Bavarianrider]

Some more reactions of that time:

Race Director Phil Bates:

Phill Bates in 2007 (Race Organiser):

Jan Ullrich came to Australia to contest the Commonwealth Bank Cycle Classic as the recently crowned Amateur World Champion. We had many World road champions compete in the Classic but none as young at just 19 years of age and with such incredible ability.

Ullrich was quite unbelievable - he could time trial, climb, bridge big gaps by himself and sprint with the very best and the bike was a natural extension of his body. He never appeared to panic. For the many people that were associated with the race in those years, they all knew that Jan Ullrich was something special and we knew that it would not be long before he would race professional and be standing on the Tour de France podium. Jan was impressive not just as a cyclist but as a person, and despite limited English in his early years, you never left meeting him with any doubt of how genuine he was.

It was not surprising to see Jan Ullrich return again the following year and enjoy the country criteriums before competing in the Classic. Out of the Grand Prix series, staged over four rounds, Ullrich won three of the four rounds and finished third in the other behind great sprinters Max Van Heeswijk and Jeremy Hunt. Some of Australia‘s best road sprinters and many national champions, including the likes of Robbie McEwen, Jay Sweet, John Den Braber, Bob Rasenberg, Chris Lillywhite, Thomas Brozyna, Dave McKenzie and many others couldn‘t match his sprint ability - a feature we rarely saw in his professional career. But in 1994, Jan Ullrich showed how supportive he was of his own teammates and worked relentlessly for Jens Voigt to win the race. It was the same loyalty displayed in the 1996 Tour de France when he helped Bjarne Riis win the Tour.

I well remember a press conference that Ulrich had after his win in the 1997 Tour de France and he was asked what was his favourite country - he replied that Germany was a wonderful place because he was born there, he loved the food of Italy, France had made him a very special person but he loved Australia the most. It was great having him compete in events in Australia and was fantastic to see him when he returned in 2000 to win the gold and silver medal at the Olympics. I followed his career with great interest and know that many of his competitors from all round the world will salute a great champion in more ways than one.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Chris SEldon of Pez cycling:



My first memories of Jan Ullrich are of a young 19 year old shy kid wearing the stripes of the amateur World Champion jersey at the Commonwealth Bank Classic in Australia. At the time the race was the one of the toughest stage races in the world for the amateurs and yet Jan used to make it look easy. I will never forget him seemingly tearing the bike apart in a massive gear as he took on the mountains of the race. One mountain in particular, springs to mind, Bumble Hill. This feared climb was only 2.5kms long, but it’s steep, really steep – 39x25 type stuff but not for our Jan! As other riders came by suffering out of the saddle, barely turning over their lowest gear there was but one rider seated, Jan Ullrich. Even as a 19 year old his legs were HUGE, pure muscle and he simply sat there exuding strength as his old Panasonic bike creaked and strained under the pressure that he was applying. Over the years I’ve now seen that same style and low cadence applied on much better bikes and on much bigger mountains, but one thing never changed, his pure strength. Not many people could ride like Jan, a true champion of our era.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Guido Eickelbeck, former racer, team boss and race organisator

Guido Eickelbeck (DS): "He is unbelievable, the best 19-year-old I have ever seen. He is a great sprinter, he can time-trial, and he is good on the hills. It is not often you get all this together in one rider, and people forget he is still only 19."

Henk Vogels: (copmeted in that race)

Henk Vogels: "He is awesome."

 

[Bavarianrider]

CLASSIC VICTORY A STEPPING STONE TO GREATER GLORY

Sydney Morning Herald 24.10.1993
Michael Cockerill

A glittering future as a professional is beckoning German teenager Jan Ullrich, who made it a hat-trick of victories for the Bosch team on Saturday by surviving a tense finale to the Pacific Power/Commonwealth Bank Cycle Classic. Moments after his win, the 1993 world amateur road champion revealed he was considering two offers to turn professional on January 1. "When I do turn professional I want to go to a team who will give me a chance, and not just as a domestique," Ullrich said. Although the identity of the two teams chasing his signature is not known, surprisingly the German-based Telekom team has yet to express an interest.

Whatever move Ullrich ultimately makes, there is little doubt that, with American Lance Armstrong, he is the youngster most favoured to become a significant force in professional road cycling over the next 10 years. The Rostock teenager has been riding for top amateur club RG Hamburg over the past two seasons and early last month he caused a major surprise by winning the world road title in Norway. Success in the Cycle Classic has also yielded another reward - the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) World Cup title, and the $US15,000 ($23,000) prize money. The 50 points he gained for winning the final race of the UCI Super League calendar took Ullrich from fourth to the top of the rankings, ahead of countryman Bert Dietz.

 

[Race Radio]

CLASSIC VICTORY A STEPPING STONE TO GREATER GLORY

Sydney Morning Herald 24.10.1993
Michael Cockerill

A glittering future as a professional is beckoning German teenager Jan Ullrich, who made it a hat-trick of victories for the Bosch team on Saturday by surviving a tense finale to the Pacific Power/Commonwealth Bank Cycle Classic. Moments after his win, the 1993 world amateur road champion revealed he was considering two offers to turn professional on January 1. "When I do turn professional I want to go to a team who will give me a chance, and not just as a domestique," Ullrich said. Although the identity of the two teams chasing his signature is not known, surprisingly the German-based Telekom team has yet to express an interest.

Whatever move Ullrich ultimately makes, there is little doubt that, with American Lance Armstrong, he is the youngster most favoured to become a significant force in professional road cycling over the next 10 years. The Rostock teenager has been riding for top amateur club RG Hamburg over the past two seasons and early last month he caused a major surprise by winning the world road title in Norway. Success in the Cycle Classic has also yielded another reward - the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) World Cup title, and the $US15,000 ($23,000) prize money. The 50 points he gained for winning the final race of the UCI Super League calendar took Ullrich from fourth to the top of the rankings, ahead of countryman Bert Dietz.

Saw similar stuff written about lance.....he went on to drop out of the Tour multiple times before he met Ferrari

 

[webvan]

Thanks for posting these, "feel good" stuff definitely...but it's sad to see what could/should have been.

 

[will10]

Ullrich winning the Pacific Power/Commonwealth Bank Cycle Classic was a huge indicator for his future GT winning capabilities. Just like the Anatomic Jock Race for Froome.

 

[Race Radio]

He is a great sprinter, he can time-trial, and he is good on the hills.

Only "Good" on the hills? This from the guy who destroyed the best riders in the world on the Arcalis?

This confirms what I have written. Jan was a great sprinter and TT rider. Would have been a great classics rider, could not climb with the climbers until he went on the program......then, POW he is the best climber in the world.

 

[webvan]

could not climb with the climbers until he went on the program

Really? In which races did you witness that?

 

[Bavarianrider]

Only "Good" on the hills? This from the guy who destroyed the best riders in the world on the Arcalis?

This confirms what I have written. Jan was a great sprinter and TT rider. Would have been a great classics rider, could not climb with the climbers until he went on the program......then, POW he is the best climber in the world.

Wow seriously, you are turning everything your way, right Ignorinring other statement completly.
At age 19 Ullrich was among the very youngest in that race by the way.

Anyay,
so who are those guys who would have won the Tour instead of Ullrich?
And what have they done at age 19 to back this up.
Who were those guys who were so much superior to Ullrich?
What did they do at age 19? Where are the quotes about them predecting their furture Tour de France glory.
I am waiting.

 

[Race Radio]

Really? In which races did you witness that?

How about Pacific Power-Commonwealth Bank Cycling Classic when world renowned climbing talent Dariusz Baranowski dropped him on Macquarie Pass?

Or at multiple Telekom training camps

 

[V3R1T4S]

Not to interrupt, but this is precisely why doping screws up everything.

The fact of the matter is, no matter which way you argue or what you believe, WE WILL NEVER KNOW.

Carry on.

 

[Race Radio]

Not to interrupt, but this is precisely why doping screws up everything.

The fact of the matter is, no matter which way you argue or what you believe, WE WILL NEVER KNOW.

Carry on.

Agreed, it is sad. The fact are oxygen vector doping produces hugely different results from rider to rider......but not for Jan. He was the one guy from the 90's who just got average results from doping. Nothing special, just average.

 

[gooner]

Agreed, it is sad. The fact are oxygen vector doping produces hugely different results from rider to rider......but not for Jan. He was the one guy from the 90's who just got average results from doping. Nothing special, just average.

Such an average response to doping Pantani said it was like following a motorbike when Ullrich attacked the following day after his disaster at Les Deux Alpes.

That was Ullrich's natural talent I say. Doping was only a small part of that

 

[Merckx index]

Doping doctors of the era had both lance and Jan at times looking like gym rats. Or Bruyneel questioning JV's contractual worth because of his poor Hct/Vo2 ratio. David Walsh writing about the link between muscle density and oxygen delivery.....but there is much more then that. Unlike you I have met and talked to most of the riders, DS, staff and doctors on the team. Talked watts, vam, recovery, and yes blood. The story is almost always the same

Then why don’t you invite one of them onto the forum to discuss this? I would love to hear what they have to say. Bring it on!

I’m sure they’re not going to admit to helping riders blood dope, but given that three of the main four protagonists we have been discussing here—Riis, Ulle, and LA—have now confessed and/or been sanctioned for doping, you could just ask one of these doctors how, in a dirty peloton where almost everyone had access to EPO and/or transfusions, these relatively large riders were able to climb so well. I assume these doctors must have had a theory of muscle density worked out, else why would they tell their charges to bulk up?

Let me remind everyone why, other things being equal, the best climbers tend to be small and light:

Small cyclists excel at hill climbing because they generally have greater relative aerobic power (VO2max in ml·min-1·kg-1 ) than do large cyclists. This is also a consequence of scaling geometry: relative to body mass, smaller organisms have greater alveolar and capillary surface areas in the lungs, greater capillary surface areas in the muscles, and greater cross-sectional area of arteries for the delivery of blood. Examinations of elite endurance athletes from a variety of sports, including cycling, have revealed that VO2max scales with the 2/3 power of mass; that is, if a 60-kg elite athlete has a VO2max of 80 ml·min-1·kg-1, then a comparably trained elite athlete who weighs 100 kg would be expected to have a VO2max of only 68 ml·min-1·kg-1.

So the success at climbing of Ulle, LA and certain others does seem odd. Not impossible, but quite unlikely. We’re not talking about one outlier here, but four, who won every TDF but one over a period of fifteen years. Not just by time trialing well, but also by hanging with the competition, if not dominating it, on the climbs. I think RR and others are right to be suspicious of this.

But it's one thing to raise this issue, quite another to provide a coherent explanation for it. Your muscle density claim--as you have expressed it here-- has no apparent support in the scientific literature. It implies an understanding of oxygen transport that, if true, would seem to require a lot of re-writing of physiology textbooks. Blood boosting allows the blood to carry more oxygen, which in turn can be delivered to the muscles. It does not increase alveolar or capillary surface areas, or affect delivery in any other way, that we know of. As I said earlier, it’s possible that EPO, though certainly not transfusions, stimulates angiogenesis, but even if it does, there is no reason to believe it would do so preferentially in densely-muscled individuals.

Moreover, there are known, accepted ways in which some riders can benefit more than others from the same blood boosting program. The most obvious is if they have a lower natural HT. When the 50% limit went into effect, this put a ceiling on HT, so riders with lower HTs could raise theirs to a larger degree. Even before this sanctioned limit, there was a physiological one. When HT goes above the mid-50s, the advantage of more RBCs tends to be cancelled by increased viscosity, hindering blood flow--though the peak HT surely varies from individual to individual, which adds another variable for individual differences.

Another possibility is the relationship between HT and V02. As RR has noted in several of his posts, this differs from rider to rider. There are also differences in how much an increase in V02 a rider achieves with a given increase in HT. So this, too, would benefit certain dopers more than others.

I don't have any problem with explanations like this. What I have a problem with is arguing that the common denominator is muscle density, and that even though this is supposed to be independent of rider size or weight, almost all the riders who benefitted from muscle density just happened to be large ones who would not have been good climbers in a clean peloton.