What's wrong Jan?

Ullefan said:

I'm so [censored], I want to slap Jan, what is he thinking?
Now we see why Lance spends millions on perfecting his machines, etc.
Now I just want someone to beat this guy, maybe Vino, don't see Basso winning. C'mon, someone please, anyone.

I don't doubt that this was a pretty diappointing start for Jan but we should keep this in context. Tom Boonen commented on Zabriskie's time as follows:

"I think I've done a decent time yeh; but that Zabriskie seems to be from another world!"

So, Lance comes in a couple of seconds behind and instead of recognizing his ride as pretty incredible too (as it was) people are focused on what a poor job Jan did. The guy was 12th out of 189th. Perhaps not what he had in mind I'd prefer to give Lance the credit where it's due rather than try to find reasons to "slap" Jan.

Mark

Anyone notice when armstrong passed ullrich, he was like 'no way' and he was keeping up with LA, but at the end you could see armstrong gaining more time.

And LA was 5 sec ahead of zabriskie with 4 more km's to go. Why did he not win, couldn't he, OR was it to not get the yellow and let CSC control the next week!

ilpirata said:

Yes it was not a great start from Ullrich, not awful however considering the trauma of a recent fall. The trouble is Vinokourov appears to be in a better position for a challenge to Armstrong at this point. A very good ride for him. Of course Armstrong must be given all the accolades. He is as stronger than ever. Beloki a big surprise (I am happy to see him back). Mayo very bad. Not bad performances from Julich, Basso, Frigo, Kloden, Cioni, Heras, Savoldelli, Karpets, Popovich, and others. But the discovery team looks like they are ready to extend lead on the team time trial as they have so many riders in the top tier.

It's not such a bad thing Zabriskie won by such a small margin, in the whole scheme of things. CSC will defend the maillot jaune until the TTT. The only unfortunate thing for DC is that they lost their final starting positoin in the TTT, because CSC's top three (Zabriske, Jullich, Voight) were 4 second better than the DC top three (LA, Hincapie, Chechu). Surprising that Rubiera was within the DC top three -- had they had Eki, he might have been there and helped DC to the team win and hence last in the TTT. Still, not a bad showing, especially since Popo was a "backup" and in the slot immediately below Chechu.

I think Bruyneel thought that Savoldelli (especially) :p or Popo would have done better than they did today. Still, as DC will start second to last, they will have some idea of how CSC is doing, although they will not know everybody's splits from having the final position.

Still, an excellent outcome for LA. Congrats!

As for why JU is not doing as well, it is possible that the Tour de Suisse ineffectiveness of JU in mountains stages caused him to try and do more work in the mountains between that Tour and the TdF. How sad is it that one of LA's *mountain* domestiques, Chechu, was only a couple of slots below JU in the ITT. RUBIERA (even though he did pretty well in last year's final ITT in the TdF and a decent ITT and TTTist as far as climbers are concerned).

Mayo had a very bad ride, and Basso expectedly lost even more than JU. Heras is not doing well, and the rider was much below Kloden's levels of last year. Vino is in pretty good shape, and perhaps did better than I thought he would. But that's a pretty good outcome for DC.

Ullefan said:

thebluetrain you're a typical arrogant american [censored] from texas.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the compliment. 😎

These are LA's gains over his major competitors (note that I do not consider Landis a real competitor):

2 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel
3 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz) T-Mobile Team 0.51
12 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team 1.06
14 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner 1.11
20 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC 1.24
51 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile Team 1.59
79 Roberto Heras (Spa) Liberty Seguros-Würth 2.18
82 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne 2.22
97 Francisco Mancebo (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne 2.29
175 Iban Mayo (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 3.13

If I were JU, I would be really saddened, but I would know that I would probably have a very good chance next year. OLNTV said that JU has never been caught in an ITT before. I wonder if that's the case. I wonder if TdF shortened the start time gaps to 1 minute even for the latest starting people to allow for this possibility. :p

Ok - I'm gutted like every other Jan fan but remember - It's still early early days!!

Come on guys - anything can happen in the tour.

Jan's only chance is probably to attack in the mountains - maybe he doesn't want to peek to early?

Jan didn't put in a bad ride today - it's just that two Americans put in something quite spectacular!!!

Put a armstrong winning the TTT and it looks like 2004. Oh he said he even feels better then last year😄 . Mayo could well be over 5 min when the TTT stage is over. Pfff talking about a serious blow! Hope he has the climbing legs.

I also hope that within T-mobile they finally will understand that they all should work for Vino. And why not let Jan attack lance on the climb before courchevel. That would be something.........

musette said:

These are LA's gains over his major competitors (note that I do not consider Landis a real competitor):

2 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel
3 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz) T-Mobile Team 0.51
12 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team 1.0614 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner 1.11
20 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC 1.2451 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile Team 1.59
79 Roberto Heras (Spa) Liberty Seguros-Würth 2.18
82 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne 2.22
97 Francisco Mancebo (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne 2.29
175 Iban Mayo (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 3.13

JU will never be able to gain large chunks of time over LA in the mountains, unless LA gets ill or bonks or something very traumatic like that (which will not happen).

LA's mountain domestiques: Ace, Chechu, Beltran, Paolo (not super-strong, but will help on descent. I predict a large group of DC riders will try for a breakaway during a stage with mountains, but not a mountain-top finish. Paolo will help them then on the descents), Popo (not a top climber, but pretty strong), Noval (not too bad; could cover early to mid mountains), Hincapie (early to mid mountains; improving). In other words, except for Padrnos, all of LA's domestiques are mountain capabilities, with three or four being very strong. Bruyneel said that Chechu and Beltran are better than last year, and Ace is at least as good. Noval is more confident. George is in better form than last year.

I would trade Eki (with all respect to Eki) + Floyd, at least in the mountains, for Paolo + Popo any day. :p

temp3st said:

Jan didn't put in a bad ride today - it's just that two Americans put in something quite spectacular!!!

It wasn't bad at all, as he was 12th. The fact that he was Lance's minute man and got caught... that just makes it so much embarrassing.

wolfix said:

I do not know much about Zabriskie, but maybe he can give Lance a run at the jersey..... Of course , for weeks we have heard about the Ullrich/Vino double punch...... Maybe the real story will be the Armstrong/ Hincapie duo in the flats. Can George stay in the mountains with the other GC riders?? Maybe George will be sitting in second when they hit the mountains ??? Barring injury , crashes, sickness, it is shaping up to be a interesting Tour. I am an American and a fan of Armstrongs & Ullrich, but we need a Tour that has surprises.

I think Zabriskie is more of a one day wonder. He can really put in some great single stages though. He won't win. He rests a lot during interim stages, and then goes for big wins.

Ullrich has typically finished much stronger in the later stages of the Tour than he does in the beginning. It's to his disadvantage for the opening day of the Tour to be a fairly long ITT, not the 10 k or less of many Tours. He loses more time this way until he gets into prime form later in the Tour.

I was very surprised that Lance is hitting full stride already. He's back on again. I'm amazed that he has been able to get back into top form without starting serious training much earlier. He didn't even decide to race it this year until February.

Zabriskie is obviously not a GC contender! It's laughable to think otherwise.

JU's diary on the TM website says this:

" I went flat out today and did not feel so bad. But to be overtaken by Lance straightaway on the first stage is certainly not a nice feeling. I can´t quite put a finger on what went wrong. Perhaps it had something to do with the crash, I did lose some blood. But I don´t really think that's the reason. I felt in good shape actually and because of this was optimistic for today's stage. Lance did, of course, ride very strongly to come in just behind the winner but at first, I did feel somewhat demoralised. Despite that, I´m happy that things have finally got started. There is still three weeks of racing to go in the Tour."

The reason JU got beaten so badly? LA is tons better than he is! LA is a better ITTist. LA is a better TTTist. LA is a better, and more quickly-adapting, climber. LA has a better team. LA has better equipment. LA has a more careful and coordinates better with his DS. LA has a better DS. Those are the reasons why! 😄

Dudes, the guy went through a back wind shield yesterday... He's lucky to be alive and, I'm surprised he was able to ride today.

Give him a break.

Plus, it's only the first day...

tcklyde said:

Yes, this was a terribile result for Ullrich. Two humiliations: getting passed by LA and getting beat by Vino. I don't dislike Ullrich (like most Americas on this forum, apparently), so I'm pretty disappointed with him today. Getting passed on a 19km TT sucks, bad.

Yeah, I totally agree. Ulrich is much more capable than what he showed.

But the accident was not 100% an accident -- it resulted at least in small part from Kummer's not being careful and/or JU not focusing on the light that signaled the car was braking.

Responding to the title of the thread, "What's wrong Jan?" - I don't think you're giving Lance enough credit - and Zabriskie for that matter - at least for today.

Take just Zabriskie and Vino out of the equation for a second and Lance would have passed anyone else who started a minute ahead of him, no? And he would've been breathing down Vino's neck.

So what's wrong with just about everyone on the tour? They're not as good as LA on a bike - at least on the time trial.

Ullrich is a great rider - it's unfortunate that he's going against arguably the greatest of all time. Ullrich would've been passed on L'Alpe-D'huez last year if they started a minute apart. It just seems reasonable that when Lance and Jan are at the top of their respective games, there's going to be a gap between them - and one minute over a 20k race doesn't seem like a stretch to me.

Here's a question: If Lance retired last year - and Ullrich finished the same way - a minute behind Zabriskie with 99% of the field - do you think you guys would be as critical of Jan's performance today?

Zabriskie isn't really much of a GC contendor, so it wouldn't have mattered as much (if at all) if Jan was only a minute behind him. Lance is, though. While there still are 20 stages left, losing one minute on the first day over less then 20km is a lot. It's quite a psychological blow by Lance against all of his competitors.

Ya I surely felt Jan would do really well in the first time trial and maybe even win the TT.

SSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!! I am watching the pass on OLN replay right now. .....Damn thought it would be more exciting the second time.

I really feel for Ulle and his performance....I'm hoping for an exciting tour. Looks as if LA and his clones are going hollywood again this year.
(turning off TV) Next year should be great...

TrekDedicated said:

Dudes, the guy went through a back wind shield yesterday... He's lucky to be alive and, I'm surprised he was able to ride today.

Give him a break.

Very true, and he wasn´t even wearing a helmet. 🙁

Thanks for the hug Ullefan. All of us Jan fans will be feeling pretty miserable at the moment. Did you see the state of the T Mobile car? I can't believe that crash had no effect whatsoever. Also, even by Jans standards that was a massive gear ratio he used. Was it just a bit too big? It could have been worse. After that crash he might not have even started, being seriously injured or even worse.