Will lance beat Ullrich?

protour

The protourseason strats today with Paris-Nice, more info on www.protourcycling.com, also information about all the races and riders participating in this season.

gntlmn

I'm wondering if Jan will be the team leader instead of Kloden. I have seen Jan this winter on tv. He does look way more fit than usual for the off season.

protour

maybe he has eaten to much wursten this winter so he is a bit to heavy to climb with the much lighter Lance and other climbers

tomkay

I don't think there are any questions of who is the real team leader at T-Mobile, it's still Ullrich. Out of the three (Vino, Kloden, Ullrich), Jan is still the one with the best chance of beating Lance. Ofcourse, much will depend on his form come July. If Ullrich is in good form then there will be no question of who will be the stronger rider out of the three.

musette

Did you watch the 04 TdF? Do you think Kloden was working for JU after certain points in time? Do you doubt that, even if JU is in his top form, that his "domestique" Kloden won't have personal ambitions and might "save a little" for himself instead of using all his energies to help JU?

The bottom line is: LA is going to beat JU again, regardless of what form JU is in.

tomkay

Did you watch the 03 TdF? Ullrich's Bianchi team, while a good team, wasn't anywhere close to matching the depth and experience of USPS. And yet Ullrich came in second place and in fact came very close to beating Lance. Do you know why? Because Ullrich is a beast of a rider that can wipe the floor with just about any rider when he is in form including Kloden, Vino and all the rest. And he doesn't need the best team to support him to do it.

During 04 Ullrich wasn't in best form and when it became apparent that Kloden was performing better, Ullrich immeadietly threw his support behind Kloden. That's what I call a classy rider. I would hope that Kloden has the same class to throw out his personal ambitions and ride for Ullrich if Ullrich is in better form.

The bottom line is: we don't know what will happen until it's over.

musette

As you said, JU came in SECOND in the 03 TdF. The question is not whether JU can be much better than everybody except LA (which I believe JU can be). The question is whether JU can beat LA.

tomkay

I never once said that Ullrich will beat Lance. All I ever said was that if Ullrich is in good form then Kloden and Vino don't stand a chance.

As for Ullrich beating Lance: It will be very hard for JU to pull this off but I think it can be done. Ullrich will need to be in the same form he was in 1997. If this is still possible remains to be seen.

musette

Kloden has personal ambitions, regardless of whether JU will be fitter than he is at the time of the Tour. Think about how Kloden "helped" JU on the climbs by abandoning him in 04 (although it was with the approval of a DS, which makes it worse and calls into question even more whether JU is the clear leader of the team).

BTW, that JU's leader position is contingent on who is the fittest at the time of the Tour is itself a sign of the fragility of JU's leader position.

Even if LA were having problems, everybody at DC (Azevedo included) would in fact sacrifice themselves even more to try and assist LA, instead of trying to usurp LA as leader of DC (not that such usurpation is possible). What we do not find at TM will be a willingness of Kloden to kill himself helping JU up a mountain so that Kloden finishes much lower than Kloden would have, had he not spent himself on JU -- this is the "good" situation for JU where he is still leader. That is part of why JU will never have the support he really needs to try and overcome LA (not that overcoming LA this year is possible).

tomkay

The way I see it, the race will dictate who the true leader will be. Usually after a day or two in the mountains the true leader emerges while the wannabees fall behind. Look what happened last year at the Giro. Simoni thought he had the race in the bag until Cunego took over. Simoni freaked out for a while but even he knew that Cunego was stronger, thus deserved to be the race leader. Same thing with T-Mobile. All sorts of names could be thrown around prior to the race, but once underway the strongest one will emerge. And if Kloden refuses to help out Jan (I'm sure the DS will have something to say about that) there are plenty of other riders (Sevilla, Guerini) that can help out in the mountains.
I think you are placing too much emphasis on whether Kloden wants to help Jan out or not. I don't think that's very important. What's more important is will Jan be in good enough form to take on Lance. That will be a whole different story.
Are you saying that Kloden has free reign to do whatever he wants during a race? That Kloden has the power to second guess the DS and do what he wants to do? That's not the way teams work. If Godefroot tells Kloden or whoever to help Jan then they better snap to it. If Kloeden decides he will not give it his all for

tomkay

Sorry about that last paragraph, I forgot to delete it. Just ignore it, thanks.

tcklyde

This is silly. Ullrich had Guerini with him going up to La Mongie. Teams come to win the Tour -- not to ride along playing nice to their cooked stars. Ullrich couldn't keep up in the early mountains. Kloden could.

Kloden couldn't have done a lick of good for Ullrich by riding next to him for 10 kms.

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Harry

Ssushi

Gotta say, Armstrong looked over weight yesterday on the prologue yesterday... Interesting as he always said that he did not go overweight in the off season.

In my opinion it's Lances chance to disprove some critics, who observe his cherry picking of the TdF, while other riders ride the season. But can he do it? Can't see him winning the TdF and other major races, otherwise he'd have done so before wouldn't he...?

micron

He looked huge - no fan of the man, but at least he always arrives prepared - saw him at the circuit de la Sarthe a few years ago with Ullrich, Armstrong looked ready to race - yesterday he looked heavy and out of shape. But then he may surprise us this season without Dr Ferrari to prepare him...

One thing's for sure, Merckx, Hinault and Kelly would never have turned up and not wanted to tear the legs off the competition...