Jan Ullrich: The Best There Never Was

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I guess I’d need to read it but frankly from what inrng reports the focus on DDR doping and so on looks laughable at best, especially when speaking of a prominent Telekom athlete. Perhaps Friebe’s greatest achievement is capturing the elusive cyclist, and explaining his mystery, without breaking it. Even though he discusses the less attractive details of Ullrich, you never lose a sense of connectedness with ‘Der Jan’. And perhaps that’s the core of this book. It is both a fine work of journalism, but also respectful. I think that if there’s a contrast in attitudes of sort to reflect about is how singling out DDR allows us to “forget” all the time what USADA was doing, or CONI and so on and on. PDF / EPUB File Name: Jan_Ullrich_The_Best_There_Never_Was_-_Daniel_Friebe.pdf, Jan_Ullrich_The_Best_There_Never_Was_-_Daniel_Friebe.epub From the outset Friebe makes clear he’s not out to condemn or to judge Ullrich, his search more for the truth and maybe even some reconciliation, to understand why in Germany today Ullrich is still viewed with some sympathy or else pity, or how so many promising things went so horribly wrong.

And what about the consequences of all that surfaced about Sky and British Cycling? (…Consequences? What consequences? A couple of scapegoats?) If you want I could also name several doped ex-athletes in cycling and beyond who get moral and financial support today… without having ever had any relation with DDR, imagine that. Contrast of attitudes? Wasn’t Ivan Basso involved in OP? And let me be clear: I consider it fairer to treat people as “we” do with Basso than as it happened with Ullrich. Another anecdote, from Peter Sager, one of Ullrich’s earliest sports coaches, talked about how the DDR might have had this reputation for the doping regime, but mostly what it did was train athletes from an early age using sophisticated sports science. While his western counterparts were poorly coached if they were coached at all, Ullrich and his friends were being organized into programs that had them racing constantly — a huge advantage over folks in the west. On balance, Ullrich was better coached and more well-rounded from his academy days than his western counterparts — hardly some monstrous robot at all. Strengths: Colorfully written portrait of the rider through the eyes of the people who know him best, at least from the cycling world.The Tour de France dominates pro cycling, the star around which the sport orbits. Many riders make it the goal of their year, other races struggle for attention. Jan Ullrich’s career was part of this, his first win suggested he’d dominate the Tour, and with it the sport for years to come. Even when he didn’t win, there was always the seasonal targeting of the Tour with his preparation getting more intense the closer the race got. Could it have been reversed in Ullrich’s favour, if the same ‘assistance’ was available?, this book appears to suggest it was a possibility. The scene is deep in the 2003 Tour. After winning a key individual time trial, Ullrich looked to be on the same winning form that made him a superstar in Germany when he won the 1997 yellow jersey. Coincidentally I happened to see this post on the same day I noticed that generations times up many of the most famous climbs – Ventoux, Alpe d’Huez – still stand, I was genuinely suprised that Froome’s 2013 Ventoux as well as Vingegaard and Pogacar in 2021 was so far down this list. Obviously heat, wind and competition mean you can’t compare like for like but still fascinating how the EPO/Blood doping generation cast such a long shadow across cycling in so many ways.

Well, not especially – it tends to be interesting as it’s a classic in ideologically skewed representations and comes up relatively often. Plus, I’m a long-time Ullrich fan, so I’ve followed him as an athlete for well, decades now. August 29th 1993; and whilst I’m aware of and impressed by a young Lance stunning us all by winning the Elite Worlds on a horrible day in Oslo, the German guy who won the amateur race didn’t register with me. But by the ‘94 Worlds when said young German fellow took Worlds individual time trial bronze, behind ‘chronoman supreme,’ Chris Boardman I remember thinking; ‘Jan Ullrich, now there’s a name to watch.’ It’s good to hear the personal stories though, even if I wish one day non-cycling fans wouldn’t respond to every cycling conversation with ‘yeah but they all doped right?’!! (Admittedly Ulrich’s suffering caused by that era far exceeds my own discomft of being a cycling fan.) I’m interested to see whether the current doping investigations in Spain which seem to have caught up with Superman will drag in wider sporting stars from Barca’s golden era and tennis. The pair became fierce rivals on the road despite sharing similar upbringings. One in Texas, and another a child from behind the Iron Curtain. The pair was almost mystically attached at the hip as they fought for dominance at the top of world cycling in the most controversial era of Tour de France history. Of course, only Fuentes has been *proven*, but just as Friebe “explores” the DDR leit motiv, why don’t explore this also rather promising subject, given that Ullrich had quite much a stronger relation with the Telekom team than with the DDR, be it only due to mere chronology?Because if we’re connecting dots, Keul (& friends) is way more interesting, and pretty much forces any serious analyst to bin for good the stereotype about the DDR as a peculiar case in State doping as opposed to what was happening in, say, West Germany… or in Italy. I am avoiding saying Ullrich failed, because he won one Tour, a Vuelta, Olympic Gold, world titles and so on. He entered the Tour eight times and came away with seven podium finishes (one since retracted for doping in 2005). His worst year, he finished fourth. The list of riders who would trade it all for that record is long. One touching aspect of the book is how Friebe ultimately ends up on a quest — which he describes in greater detail on The Cycling Podcast’s June 5, 2022 edition. His quest starts to mirror the subject he is covering, as Friebe talks about struggling with anxiety over the book and its ultrasensitive subject. But there is another interesting, endearing element I don’t believe he has mentioned: how this book and its creation resembles Richard Moore’s In Search of Robert Millar, the breakthrough book that put Friebe’s dear friend and eventual podcast partner into the mainstream of cycling media.