Jan Ullrich

[Race Radio]

At a guess Ferrari during the Armstrong exclusive era had abiut 20-30 riders, perhaps more? (Evans, Rogers etc.), Fuentes 70-200. Cecchini 44 known riders, Leinders, all of Rabo - 30, 40 riders, maybe more freelance?

Link for any of these claims......or are you making things up again?

Any link of Cecchini doing transfusions in the 2000's?

 

[blackcat]

Regardless of what Bölts said and whether or not Ullrich would have won 48 Tours if the peloton had been clean, the level playing field theory is ridiculous.

As for this low hematocrit - maybe he was using a minimum of EPO just to keep his hematocrit from falling during a GT? Anyway, it's not like you can't have a very successful and blood-manipulation-heavy program and still keep a relatively low hematocrit. Just look at Rasmussen.

blood vector doping, allowed doping riders to minimise some factors. Hence, Armstrong p'raps one, count em, 1, ONE, a single jour sans, where he may have lost 50 seconds to a GC rival.

doping allowed riders to minimise and mitigate risk factors and intangibles.

30 or 35 riders* on the bottom of the final ascent on a the Queen Stage?

*(not including the breakaway riders)

 

[VeloFidelis]

How is it "equal" if one riders gets 5 extra watts and another gets 50? What math makes that equal?

I'm not preoccupied with equal... equal does not exist in sport. Competition... of any kind, exist solely for the express purpose of being the most accurate measurement of the inequality among those participating. It is the answer to the question you're asking whenever you show up on the starting line.

 

[webvan]

My view Jan, naturally would still win the Tour. He'd smash the ITTs, kill the lumpy stages but I don't think he'd climb as well. He'd be able to hang on. But if Pantani wasn't doping he couldn't ITT and wouldn't be as explosive on the mountains. So it might still be a good race. Seeing Jan's early results I can't see him as anything but a great talent.

And that's the sad fact. We may never know just how good.

We WILL never know unfortunately...

But yes, a Hinault kind of rider, who other than his best year, mainly 1981, but also 1986 I suppose to some extent, was happy to climb tempo and trounce the GT competition in the ITTs.

 

[thehog]

We WILL never know unfortunately...

But yes, a Hinault kind of rider, who other than his best year, mainly 1981, but also 1986 I suppose to some extent, was happy to climb tempo and trounce the GT competition in the ITTs.

Very true.

If there wasn’t such media focus on the Tour de France Jan could have been a decent 1 day rider. Strong enough to be that. He was regarded as a sprinter in is earlier days. He won the 93 worlds but riding away from the lead group in the last 500 meters – I’m not sure it was even a sprint, he was just stronger than everyone else. He won Koln with a brutal attack and TT’d to victory.

Unique talent.

He should have won the 1998 Tour but was underdone.

2003 he got close because Lance was not at his best and the rest were certainly catching up. I’m not sure blood doping helped him in 2003. He lost 1.34 to Armstrong, Hamilton, Mayo on d’Huez. His climbing was going backwards since doing transfusions – or maybe he was actually doing them? He got back 1.36 in the ITT when Armstrong was overly dehydrated and Jan warmed up in an air conditioned bakery! In fact Pevenage rented out the entire shop for the Jan and the crew. It was 38c that day. He stupidly attacked on Luz Ardiden with 50km to go and then Armstrong trounced him.

2004 he was a mess and 2005 Armstrong embarrassed him again. So all in all I’m not sure blood work helped him at all. He did look good in 2006, really good. But we’ll never know if he was going to win that Tour now.

Memories!

 

[Race Radio]

I'm not preoccupied with equal... equal does not exist in sport. Competition... of any kind, exist solely for the express purpose of being the most accurate measurement of the inequality among those participating. It is the answer to the question you're asking whenever you show up on the starting line.

Jan disagrees with you, he thinks it was equal

 

[hfer07]

Jan had his best Tour in 6 years after he started using Fuentes

If he started using Fuentes in 2003, and you call that year his best Tour result, then you perhaps forgot that his placing was based on the race circumstances when Beloki crashed & got out while LA was suffering from so called "dehydration"-It never meant Jan got better or raised his performance-so moving forward-2004 was a no go & 05 still wasn't enough to get closer to the title which would have been a result of what you call his "improvement" under Fuentes guidance....

 

[thehog]

If he started using Fuentes in 2003, and you call that year his best Tour result, then you perhaps forgot that his placing was based on the race circumstances when Beloki crashed & got out while LA was suffering from so called "dehydration"-It never meant Jan got better or raised his performance-so moving forward-2004 was a no go & 05 still wasn't enough to get closer to the title which would have been a result of what you call his "improvement" under Fuentes guidance....

In 2003 he won nothing bar Koln with a cut down field and the Tour ITT.

First half of the year he was off the back. Troubles with Team Coast etc. may have impacted him.

In 2004 he was 8 minutes 50 from Armstrong. That’s a long way back. A long long way back.

In 2005 he only finished on the podium because of Rasmussen’s time trial. But he was out of the race on the first mountain stage.

Not sure if transfusions were helping Jan or if he was refusing them or he was not doping as hard as some suggest (there's talk of the bad bag in 2004 from Hamilton).

Livinigston’s 42% claim might be true. No reason not to believe the private IM from Vaughters.

If anything the rest were catching up and surpassing Jan once transfusions became available to all.

ie Mayo, Beloki, Rasmussen, Basso etc.

 

[Race Radio]

In 2003 he won nothing bar Koln with a cut down field and the Tour ITT.

First half of the year he was off the back. Troubles with Team Coast etc. may have impacted him.

In 2004 he was 8 minutes 50 from Armstrong. That’s a long way back. A long long way back.

In 2005 he only finished on the podium because of Rasmussen’s time trial. But he was out of the race on the first mountain stage.

Not sure if transfusions were helping Jan or if he was refusing them or he was not doping as hard as some suggest (there's talk of the bad bag in 2004 from Hamilton).

Livinigston’s 42% claim might be true. No reason not to believe the private IM from Vaughters.

If anything the rest were catching up and surpassing Jan once transfusions became available to all.

ie Mayo, Beloki, Rasmussen, Basso etc.

So Jan paid Fuentes $100,000 for interval workouts?

 

[webvan]

Talk about a broken record...we get it dude, actually no one here is disputing the fact that he used the "blood services" of good doctor Fuentes. We're (trying) to have an open discussion on the merits of Ullrich as a bike rider and lamenting the fact that we'll never know for sure what could have been without EPO.

Since you don't appear to be interested in that discussion, may I suggest that you give Richie Porte a call and set up another lunch appointment with him and come back with an interesting report this time, not just that he's a great guy who can't possibly be cheating? Thanks.

 

[thehog]

Talk about a broken record...we get it dude, actually no one here is disputing the fact that he used the "blood services" of good doctor Fuentes. We're (trying) to have an open discussion on the merits of Ullrich as a bike rider and lamenting the fact that we'll never know for sure what could have been without EPO.

Since you don't appear to be interested in that discussion, may I suggest that you give Richie Porte a call and set up another lunch appointment with him and come back with an interesting report this time, not just that he's a great guy who can't possibly be cheating? Thanks.

Dimspace has an excellent run down on the number of blood bags and riders involved in Operation Puerto.


http://velorooms.com/index.php?topic=1783.0

http://velorooms.com/index.php?topic=1783.30


(Mods delete if I'm not allowed to link another forum.)

Fuentes was well organised despite is dyslexic assitant who was prone to mixing up the bags now and then!

Interesting to note the sheer number of teams outside of Ferrari/Rabo who were using Fuentes. Appears CSC and the Spanish teams were his main clients.

For whatever reason Ullrich didn’t respond to Fuentes work. He got progressively worse. He did look really good in 2006 but we’ll never know.

The talk of 2003 Tour was logistics. Rumor has it Lance’s bloodbag week 1 was spoilt due to the heatwave in Europe and he didn’t take it. Same may have happened to Jan as he was sick in the first week and was on the cusp of withdrawing from the Tour – see Manzano.

Cyclingnews did an excellent 3-part series on blood doping here. Blood doping was around since year 0. The biggest hurdle appeared getting the blood on the road and to the rest day stage without spoiling. The idea of Fuentes Sibera was the withdrawal wouldn’t need to come 30 days prior to overcome some of these logistical issues.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/a-history-on-the-use-of-blood-transfusions-in-cycling

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/a-history-on-blood-transfusions-in-cycling-part-2

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/a-history-on-blood-transfusions-in-cycling-part-3

Back to Ullrich. Just don't see he was anything put a super super talent caught up in a unfortunate era. I don't see him with any massive advantage over anyone. In fact I see the opposite.

 

[Race Radio]

Dimspace has an excellent run down on the number of blood bags and riders involved in Operation Puerto.

http://velorooms.com/index.php?topic=1783.30

(Mods delete if I'm not allowed to link another forum.)

You said Fuentes had 200 cyclist customers, do you have any proof of this? Most reports have it as less then 50.

Did you just invent the 200 number?

 

[thehog]

It seems as in 2000 and 2001 there was certainly a split in the peloton. Those who used blood manipulation and those who didn't. Actually i read reports of race doctors who claimed that in the spring of 2001 the peloton was as clean as it hasn't been in along time. However, for the Tour this changed again and some teams restablished blood manioulation methods. I leave it up to you to guess who that was.

As for Ullrich, remember that after the 2001 season he got in all those private and mental problems. Ullrich at that time was very frustrated. He realized that if he wanted to won the our again, he had to go bike in the the doping cycle.

By 2003 we must asume, that blood doping of some sort was totally reestablished and almost everybody in the peleton used it again.
However, it seems that there was still something of a two class system and not everybody was riding on the same good stuff.

In May of 2006 a telphone call of Rudy Pevenage with Fuentes was recorded by the police. In this telephone call, Pevenage seems to be suprised how good a certain method is working and talks with Fuentes about using this for Jan.

So while we must asume that Ullrich worked together with Fuentes before 2005 it seems that Ullrich in 2006 seemed to be willing to use a certain doping method which he hadn't used in the years before, but was apperently already known and used to some parts of the peleton.

In 2006 Ullrich wanted to have a real competitive situation once again. In what he wanted to be the last year of his career, he was willing to take risks again. In that year we would have seen the real Jan again. A Jan which was on the same doping level as his competitors. He would have smoked everyone like he did in 1997.

Of course at the end, Ullrich is a drug user just like other, too. However, taking a closer look at the story, Ullrich is more of a victim than a profiteur of the EPO/blood doping era.

As Jeff D'Hont said, one of the guys that knows more about the peloton and the drug abuse in it, than must other people: "If the peloton was clean, Ullrich could have won the Tour 10 times. He was by far the most naturaly gifted rider"

I've read this 10 year statement as well. Jeff would know. Is there a link to it?

 

[Digger]

I've read this 10 year statement as well. Jeff would know. Is there a link to it?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dhont-says-he-gave-ullrich-epo

 

[Race Radio]

I've read this 10 year statement as well. Jeff would know. Is there a link to it?

Speaking of links do you have a link to your claim that Fuentes had 200 cyclist customers......or did you make that up?

Interesting that Jan walked away from the Telekom program so early in his career. Wonder why, perhaps it was not aggressive enough for him? He found a good supplier in Fuentes.

 

[MarkvW]

Speaking of links do you have a link to your claim that Fuentes had 200 cyclist customers......or did you make that up?

Interesting that Jan walked away from the Telekom program so early in his career. Wonder why, perhaps it was not aggressive enough for him? He found a good supplier in Fuentes.

I think he deleted that statement from his post. No need to flog a dead horse.

 

[kingjr]

I think he deleted that statement from his post. No need to flog a dead horse.

I think hog can speak for himself, or can't he?

 

[thehog]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dhont-says-he-gave-ullrich-epo

Thanks. There it is.

Jeff said Riis got to 64%.

d'Hont praised the German rider. "If they had all been clean, then Ullrich would have won the Tour 10 times. At least! I don't know if the wanted the doping or not. But he did it because everyone was doing it."

Walter organised and financed the program. Jeff saw it all, and administered some of it.

A connection with a friend of Jan's said he never wanted to be part of it and was always umcomfortable. Similar to what Jeff is saying here.

You can take the words however you want to see it.

Still not seeing how the blood work assisted him. 9 minutes off Armstrong in 2004.

That's a long way.

 

[Race Radio]

I think he deleted that statement from his post. No need to flog a dead horse.

Nope, still there.

There were over 200 cyclists on the Fuentes list.
.

Just another of the many unsupported claims Hog clogs the board with. A small percentage of Pro's did transfusions. Inflating the numbers with invented claims does not change this fact

 

[D-Queued]

Speaking of links do you have a link to your claim that Fuentes had 200 cyclist customers......or did you make that up?

Interesting that Jan walked away from the Telekom program so early in his career. Wonder why, perhaps it was not aggressive enough for him? He found a good supplier in Fuentes.

Though it may be a dead horse, as I vaguely recall, the '200' number came from the original reports.

Given how much of the OP evidence has never seen the light of day, I have personally never been satisfied with how many athletes have been confirmed to have used the services.

Dave.

 

[thehog]

I think hog can speak for himself, or can't he?

Commencing in May 2006, the police investigation of Fuentes’ clandestine doping network was code-named “Operación Puerto” and resulted in the confiscation of close to 200 blood bags donated by pro-cyclists who were later to receive the transfusions during critical races as a way to enhance their performance. The bags were labeled with the cryptic nicknames Fuentes gave to his clients, yet many remain unmatched to their cyclist-donors. As secrets from Operación Puerto continue to be revealed, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is waiting to learn whether it will get access to these bags of blood in order to DNA match them to their donors

http://comocyco.com/2013/02/07/200-bags-of-blood-the-mystery-of-the-classics-guy-from-luigi/

Add in Ferrari and Leinders Rabo and you have a fair whack of the ProTour level and two levels down.

It is what it is.

The information is there and we can make our own minds up on how significant transfusions were at the time.

This thread is about Jan. But at the time the logistical issues of transfusions no longer appeared apparent.

Even Kelme weren't Top 10'ing in GTs had their version of 'motorman' circa 2003 delivering blood. Manzano is on record as saying.

 

[Race Radio]

http://comocyco.com/2013/02/07/200-bags-of-blood-the-mystery-of-the-classics-guy-from-luigi/

Add in Ferrari and Leinders Rabo and you have a fair whack of the ProTour level and two levels down.

It is what it is.

The information is there and we can make our own minds up on how significant transfusions were at the time.

This thread is about Jan. But at the time the logistical issues of transfusions no longer appeared apparent.

Even Kelme weren't Top 10'ing in GTs had their version of 'motorman' circa 2003 delivering blood. Manzano is on record as saying.

I assume you understand that a cyclist is not a blood bag right?

There were over 200 cyclists on the Fuentes list.

The fact is you do not have a "Fair wack" you have a small minority. Fuentes was the most active and 9 riders kicked out of the Tour, not 200.

Inventing numbers to support the "Everyone was doing it myth"

 

[gooner]

There was around 50 cyclists accused. I thought some of the 200 bags were from other sports as well and the uproar was that with them destroyed we won't see them exposed also. Hence the reaction from the likes of Andy Murray who were livid with it.

 

[sittingbison]

Everyone take a chill pill please.

The 200 cyclists, 300 Spartans, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Nadal etc is done with.

Move on

Thank you
Bison

 

[thehog]

There was around 50 cyclists accused. I thought some of the 200 bags were from other sports as well and the uproar was that with them destroyed we won't see them exposed also. Hence the reaction from the likes of Andy Murray who were livid with it.

According to Dims list around 79. Anyway a lot.

Back to the topic at hand.

Jaksche gave a chilling account of his doping to Der Spiegal

It was in German but well translated into English here:

http://drunkcyclist.com/2007/07/10/joerg-jaksche-der-spiegel-article-translation/

Worth reading in regards to the pressure to dope and the way the team managers manipulated the situation.

Getting a contract in cycling is like prostituation. It's fairly bad.

So back to Jan, yeah, I understand his predicament and the pressure to dope.