William Fotheringham Tour de France
When Jan Ullrich effectively won the Tour de France in the second week of racing last year, his performance was so dominating that there were those, notably the five-times winner Bernard Hinault, who hailed the 23-year-old German as the man who would win the Tour into the millennium and beyond.
It was the obvious prediction, after Ullrich had crushed the climbers on the mountain-top finish in Andorra, then dominated the time-trial in Saint Etienne two days later to build a massive lead, but even a week later his credentials as the new Miguel Indurain looked weaker – and 12 months on they are in tatters.
Winning the tour, as Ullrich did last year, even though his form disappeared in the final week, is one thing, but defending the title of tour winner is a different matter.
In 1996, for example, his Danish team- mate in the Telekom team, Bjarne Riis, definitively put an end to Indurain’s five-year winning run, but last year he was a shadow of himself and finished seventh.
In the tour’s 95-year history only 11 men have won the race and repeated the feat the following year.
Ullrich now has the chance to join greats of the past such as Indurain, Hinault and Greg LeMond, but many feel it will be better for his career in the long term if he falls flat on his face. “If he wins this year he’ll feel he can do what he did in the winter and get away with it; if he fails he will learn an important lesson for the future,” said one seasoned fellow professional.
Ullrich’s loss of form in the final week last year left some doubt about his stamina, but his complete lack of fitness at the start of this season – largely because he had put on between 10 and 12 kilograms over the winter – has raised bigger questions, about his commitment and self-discipline.
The German offers no specific explanation for his weight gain beyond saying: “After the kind of mental strain you go through on the Tour de France you have to really relax to get yourself back in shape mentally.
And you have to do that before you can get back in shape physically. I needed that time out.”
In other words, he stopped riding his bike and ate and drank too much; but, as other winners of the race point out, he must have done so to a huge extent and for a long time to put on so much weight. This is the opposite of the approach employed by Indurain and other greats such as Sean Kelly, who knew that self-sacrifice in the winter would translate to success in the summer.
Even while Ullrich’s lack of fitness was brutally exposed by his rivals in the spring, he surprised those around him by keeping a cool head and insisting he would be on form when the time came.
According to his team doctor he is now the same weight – 73kg – as this time last year, and two-and-a-half hours of testing in the laboratory at the University of Fribourg this week indicate that he is in approximately the same physical condition.
His rivals will probably be more impressed by the fact that in last weekend’s German National Championship Ullrich was clearly at a level above the rest of a mediocre field and could afford to hand the victory to his team-mate Erik Zabel, also from the old East Germany, who is out to take the green jersey of the tour points winner for the third successive time this year.
And the week before the German event, in a stage race in the Pyrenees at the mountain-top stage finish of Plateau de Beille – to be climbed by the tour on July 22 -Ullrich was a cut above the rest.
There may still be residual doubts about the long-term effects of his winter excesses but he can be heartened by the fact that none of his potential rivals has shown conclusive evidence of form good enough to trouble him.
Riis at least has managed to win a race in the build-up to the tour, despite a spring in which he raced little because of a broken wrist and his marriage fell apart after a widely publicised affair with the captain of the Danish women’s volleyball team.
But at 34 he no longer has time on his side and may find himself reduced to a supporting role.
The last two tour winners face largely the same opposition as last year, headed by Richard Virenque, who was joined at the Festina watches team by the Swiss Alex Zlle during the winter. Inevitably there is speculation whether the pair will be able to co-operate, but the Festina management are probably more worried that Zlle has shown no sign of recovering from a spectacular collapse in the tour of Italy this year, and that Virenque has yet to show his usual pre-tour form.
This year’s course, less mountainous and with longer time-trials than last year’s, does not seem suited to the Italian scalatore -climber Marco Pantani, who has not raced since he won his home Giro a month ago.
It may be more to the liking of Indurain’s Spanish heir-apparent Abraham Olano, who grovelled through the mountains last year but won the final time-trial. Since then he has had his tonsils out and is said to be a new man.
The dark horse may prove to be Laurent Jalabert, winner of the French National Championship on a mountainous course last Sunday, who has discovered previously unknown time-trialling ability this year. After disastrous tours last year and in 1996, he has built his season around this year’s race.
At the very least Jalabert will be able to rival Britain’s Chris Boardman – who, as usual, is pessimistic about his form as the tour approaches and seems to be getting his excuses in early.