Marco Pantani won the 1998 Giro d’Italia and Tour de France and often clashed with Ullrich and Armstrong before suffering with mental problems and addiction. Of course all of this was played out in the midst of some of the biggest drug infringements in the Tour’s history, to the point that the Tour was no longer functioning as a sporting event. Former German cyclist Jan Ullrich reappeared for the first time on a public stage at the Mallorca 312 Gran Fondo event. Perfect for any cycling fan, but also for those who are interested in the complexity and fragility that often accompanies the most gifted, but also the experiences that shapes them. He rode the Giro to get in shape, beating specialists Pinotti and Honchar to win a time trial stage.

Jan Ullrich: The Best There Never Was by Daniel Friebe Jan Ullrich: The Best There Never Was by Daniel Friebe

A tough upbringing, along with impossible expectations created a pretty tough life for someone who just wanted to do the best he could. Exchanging his ill-fitting German Elite Road Race for the maillot jaune, Ullrich won two stages, was second in the king of the mountains, best young rider and took the GC by nine minutes from Richard Virenque. He told us that Lance’s monastic Tour preparation, with every mouthful measured began in November whilst Jan would think about kicking back on the gateaux somewhere around March.As a veteran reporter on the Tour caravan, a polyglot, and an avid speed golf player he turned out to be the best biographer we could have wished for. In the recent ESPN documentary on Lance Armstrong, the Texan reveals he travelled to Mallorca to visit Ullrich in 2018 and help the rider he describes as "the most important person in my life". And yet - for all the acres of coverage he received throughout his career, and the interest in Ullrich as the only person who had seemed capable of knocking Armstrong off his perch - the boy from East Germany remained an enigma. I will not utter one negative word about him,” he says, which for Armstrong must also be something of a first and last. There the achievement was to give an authentic voice - sometimes it really sounded like a Cav interview recounting a sprint finish.

Jan Ullrich by Daniel Friebe - Pan Macmillan Jan Ullrich by Daniel Friebe - Pan Macmillan

He is the author of Eddy Merckx: The Cannibal, Mountain High and Mountain Higher, and has collaborated with Mark Cavendish on Boy Racer, At Speed and Tour de Force. It is not easy as a journalist to talk about a character like Ullrich without it being understood as an apology for his past. Over een overeenkomst tussen het DDR-dopingprogramma en de vroegste resultaten van Jan wordt warm en koud geblazen (er bestaat alleszins geen bewijs voor), maar het ergste vind ik persoonlijk iets dat weggemoffeld wordt in een voetnoot (namelijk nr. The Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti wrote: "Do not save yourself, do not fill yourself with calm, do not set yourself aside from the world, just find a quiet corner".A triumphant exploration of an enigmatic subject who declined to be interviewed in person (perhaps not surprisingly when you read about some of his past disasters with the media). Though I would have hoped to ask him more, the interview had to be kept light and easy-going at his request. My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.

Jan Ullrich: The Best There Never Was - Goodreads

The site was purchased by Knapp Communications in 1999, and owner Gerard Knapp built it into the definitive voice of pro cycling. In fairness to the Dane, when it became apparent that this wasn’t his Tour, all his energies went in to supporting Ullrich. Still, it wasn’t until 2013 before he came clean, admitting his performance-enhancing drug habit assisted by Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, Ullrich was also named on the covered-up list of EPO positives going back to the 1998 Tour.It was even more shocking to Ullrich, who, no longer needing to walk with his head down out of embarrassment, began to smile fearlessly.

Jan Ullrich : The Best There Never Was - Google Books Jan Ullrich : The Best There Never Was - Google Books

Originally dubbed Der Kaiser for his ruling of the road, he later became known as The yo-yo given the constant bounce of his weight loss and gain. Ullrich finished the race second overall, best young rider and with his Stage 20 time trial win – a stunning Tour debut.Something isn’t right when a rider like Ullrich is putting a large-sized jar of Nutella into a microwave and then sipping the entire contents out of a straw. It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. Led from pillar to post, he fell into doping because everyone else was doing it and one can’t help feel sympathy for someone who appears unsuited for almost any adult life, let alone the pressures of professional sport at an extremely turbulent time. Jan The Best That Never Was is the first complete biography of cycling's second-best and his rivalry with Lance Armstrong, the man who bested him time and again. Daniel Friebe is one of Britain's leading cycling journalists and a veteran of nine Tours de France.