Jan Ullrich
Jan Ullrich (born December 2, 1973 in Rostock, Germany) is a German professional road bicycle racer. He won the Tour de France in 1997, finished 2nd five times and one time fourth (2004) and third (2005). He was the first German to win the Tour de France, which led to a bicycle sports boom in Germany. He also won a gold medal in the Olympics 2000 in Sydney and the Vuelta a España as well.
He won his first bicycle race (at school) at the early age of nine. He was educated by the sports training system of the German Democratic Republic, and attended the SC Dynamo sports school in Berlin in 1986. After the fall of the Berlin wall his trainer Peter Becker moved with Ullrich to Hamburg.
In 1993, Ullrich surprisingly won the amateurs road world championship in Oslo. At the same time, Lance Armstrong won the professionals world championship.
After this and other successes, Ullrich became a professional member of Team Telekom. He moved together with his girlfriend to Merdingen in the south of Germany.
Early professional years
In his first one and a half years as a professional, he was inconspicuous. At his first start at the 1996 Tour de France, he reached a sensational second place behind his Danish team mate Bjarne Riis. He won the final individual time trial and secured himself his first Tour stage win.
Despite being a teammate to previous year's winner Bjarne Riis, he quickly became the favorite. In the 1997 Tour de France. Riis was not strong enough to keep Ullrich down in the mountains or in the time-trials. After a dominant win in a stage in the mountains and his first yellow jersey, the German press started to follow the tour more closely. Despite Marco Pantani's devastating attacks in the Alpe d'Huez and Morzine stages, Ullrich kept his cool and was able to limit his time losses. For performance and ability to keep his nerves the French sports newspaper L'Équipe considered him as one of the top bikers with the words Voilà le Patron ("Here is the boss"). Ullrich won another stage in the tour and became the first German to win the tour. He was 23 at the time, one of the youngest winners ever. He was chosen "sports person of the year" in Germany in 1997.
Comeback from injury, and the Armstrong years
Despite starting as the popular defending champion, Ullrich was upstaged by the aggressive attacking style of Marco Pantani in the drug scandal-ridden 1998 Tour de France. The following year saw him miss the 1999 Tour de France — which was won for the first time by American Lance Armstrong -- due to a knee injury. However, he returned in time to win the 1999 Vuelta a España defeating the Spanish favourite Abraham Olano of Team ONCE.
The 2000 Tour de France saw former champions Ullrich and Pantani, and defending champion Armstrong line up against each other for the first time. However, Armstrong proved too strong to upstage, as he did again in the 2001 Tour de France despite Ullrich wearing the jersey of the German National Champion. His ride in the 2001 Tour was memorable for his crash during which Armstrong waited for him to return on his bike. In interviews Ullrich cited his failures to defeat Armstrong despite his preparations as his reasons for falling into depression in the next year.
In May of 2002, Ullrich temporarily had his driver's licence revoked after a drunk driving incident. [1] After a positive blood sample for amphetamine in June of 2002, [2] Ullrich's contract with Team Telekom was ended, and he was banned for 6 months. He explained that the positive result was from ingesting the recreational drug ecstasy, which had been cut with ampetamine. [3] He had not been racing since January due to a recurring knee injury [4], and the German Cycling Federation's disciplinary committee agreed that he was not attempting to use the drug for performance enhancement, so he was only given a minimum suspension [5].
In January of 2003, Ullrich and his longtime advisor Rudy Pevenage joined the Team Coast outfit, [6] but after severe financial problems Coast pulled its sponsorship, and Team Bianchi was formed. He finally returned to racing in March of 2003.
In the 2003 Tour de France, Ullrich once again finished second, behind Armstrong. It was the closest Ullrich had come to defeating Armstrong, during which Tour he defeated Armstrong in an individual time trial stage and put time into Armstrong the following day in a climbing stage. Armstrong managed to bluff his way and Ullrich did not put in an attack until the very last section of the stage, failing to capitalize on Armstrong's temporary weakness. In the end, Armstrong held on and won the Tour yet again. The 2003 edition was also memorable for Armstrong's crash due to his handlebar getting caught in a spectator's bag. Whether Jan Ullrich waited for Armstrong to remount is still subject of intense debate, although Ullrich himself asserted that he did indeed wait and did not attack.
In terms of finishes, Jan Ullrich could be compared with Raymond Poulidor, who was called the "eternal second" (with the difference that Poulidor never won the Tour de France), but a better candidate would probably be Joop Zoetemelk, who won the Tour once as well and finished in second place six times, only one more than Ullrich. Also like Poulidor, Ullrich has not donned the Maillot jaune since 1998.
Recent years
For the 2004 season, Ullrich returned to Team Telekom (now named T-Mobile since a sponsorship change). Ullrich won the Tour de Suisse during his preparation for the Tour de France. In the 2004 Tour de France, he finished in fourth place, 8:50 behind Armstrong. It was Ullrich's first finish lower than second. T-Mobile teammate Andreas Klöden finished second, and Ivan Basso third. Ullrich said that he had been infected by a cold from his newborn baby, and was not able to ride to his full capacity.
For 2005, Ullrich again captained the talented T-Mobile squad. As was his normal routine to prepare for Le Tour de France, Ullrich maintained a low profile for much of the 2005 early season campaign, surfacing to test his preparedness in the 2005 Tour de Suisse, which he finished third after Aitor González (Team Euskaltel) and Michael Rogers (Team Quick Step).
Ullrich is constantly criticized and sometimes parodied for his weight, especially large gains in the winter, but he maintains that he always races it off in time for the Tour. Compared to his perennial rival Lance Armstrong, Ullrich has been said to have perhaps a more advantageous physiology that would prevail were it not for the near-maniacal training regimen of Armstrong, but this is debatable. Armstrong himself admitted that it is Ullrich whom he considers to be his most dangerous rival, going as far as admitting that he would examine photos of Ullrich in the early season races to see how his form is developing.
The day before the 2005 Tour de France, during a training ride, Ullrich crashed. He was closely following (drafting) his accompaning team car when it stopped unexpectedly quickly. He was unable to stop and plowed into the back windshield, narrowly avoiding cutting a major artery by several millimeters. He was not wearing a helmet at the time.
During the 2005 Tour de France, Ullrich was passed by Lance Armstrong in the first stage time trial, after starting a minute before him, causing speculation that he was once more doomed to be beaten by the American. Ullrich fell again in the mountains, bruising his ribs. During several other pivotal moments in the Tour, he could not keep up with Armstrong or Ivan Basso. Resigning himself to never beating Armstrong, Ullrich began focusing on finishing ahead the surprise star of the mountains, Rasmussen, for a podium position in the general classification. At the individual time trials nearing the end of the 2005 Tour de France Ullrich had a stellar time trial, demolishing the competition, save Lance Armstrong, who came through to set an even quicker time near the end of the stage. Rasmussen had a terrible time trial, which consisted of several crashes, and around 5 bike changes, which ultimately gave Ullrich a podium place in the Tour de France.
Ullrich is one of the most popular sportspersons in Germany, and has appeared in many commercials.
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