Got ya...I misinterpreted.

same for Poulidor who had to deal with Anquetil, then Merckx...bummer! it doesn't mean he wasn't a great rider, he was just unlucky to be there when two monsters of cycling appeared...

However, for Ullrich, the misfortune is more that he has not focused as much as Armstrong on the Tour, otherwise, each summer would be a mega duel, and Lance wouldn't be at 5, and we would have heart attacks watching the two of them ripping the mountains!

Interesting comments by Hinault about Jan.

http://www.velonews.com/...articles/6610.0.html

He held back in the time trial taking 2min something out of Riis? And there weren't any stages afterwards where he could have done anything, was he supposed to atack on the Champs Elyssees? That year Ullrich simply lost too much time in the mountains, when Riis went nobody could follow and it's not like Ullrich was even second on those mountain stages. If that Tour had been four weeks long he might have had a shot.

And of course, what comes around goes around, when Ullrich was in full panick mode in 1997 being all alone trying to descend and catch Virenque, Riis was there to get him down those mountains safely. He could use somebody to help him descend this year.

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Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike
OPEN cycle

The Jan Ullrich Fan Club (Lisbon branch) doesn't respond to trolls ;-)

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