The Lore behind Ullrichstrong
I have been asked to explain the lore behind Ullrichstrong by @lalalabro and, after some drafts and back and forth, I have decided to go in as much of a chronological order of events as I can.
Lance puts it very well when he said in 2018: "He was the most important person in my life. Nobody scared me, motivated me. The other guys… no disrespect to them, didn’t get me up early. He got me up early. He put the fear of god in me."
Lance and Jan met first during the UCI roads in Oslo in 1993. Where Lance raced as a pro and Jan as an amateur.
Lance stuck out because he beat Miguel Fucking Indurain, Jan's literal idol, in the pouring rain. Meanwhile Jan beat the other amateurs in the final sprint.
Both of them still remember this to this day, and Jan even revealed that from that day on he followed Lance's career. And the only other two he was following religiously before that were Miguel Indurain and Marco Pantani.
They would meet again only in 1996 during the Tour de France. But only for about six days as Lance abandoned the Tour after stage 6, only to be diagnosed with cancer.
This pic was taken there.
And this says more than 1000 words actually. Because Jan's English was abysmal back then and he relied heavily on his teammates for translations. But he seemed to have had no problem communicating with Lance here.
Lance would be at the road side during the second solo time trial of the Tour de France in 1997. The year Jan won the Tour de France. And he remembers thinking how nobody would be able to beat Jan for ten years.
And you gotta understand, based on Jan's performance at the Tour de France in 1996 and 1997 everyone thought Jan was the next Indurain. That he would go on and win ten Tours in a row, with nobody able to beat him. You had people like Poulidor at the roadside being baffled and saying, "it's Merckx!"
Instead Jan would end up like Poulidor, the eternal second to Lance Armstrong.
They would only meet again during the UCI Roads at the end of 1999, where Jan beat Lance in the the time trial, after Jan lost the Tour in 1998 to Marco Pantani and couldn't compete in the Tour in 1999 due to injury.
Jan did manage to win the Vuelta in 1999, which was held after the Tour, and which he only rode to, "get back into it".
It's also worth mentioning that back in 1999 Lance winning the Tour was kinda smiled at because his greatest competition, aka Jan and Marco, weren't there.
2000 Jan was unable to beat Lance during the Tour de France but something interesting did happen during stage 15.
Lance's great rivalry that year was with Marco Pantani, who he had the greatest bitch fight ever with.
During stage 15 Marco started an attack on the first of five passes that evoked the move he made in 1998, which destroyed Jan and gifted him the yellow jerseys. Lance, completely riled up, was telling his team to allow Marco to go, thinking he would blow up after riding hard the whole day and they could just blow past him.
Well, Marco did blow up, but so did Lance. Allowing for Richard Virenque and Jan to ride away and finish the stage as first and second.
This picture, taken during that stage, is pretty funny given what would happen a year later.
At the end of the season Jan was also able to remind Lance that he was still a force to be reckoned with as he beat Lance during the Olympics and took home a gold and silver medal.
The 2001 Tour de France is where it really kicks off.
There were some... situations.
"The Look". A bush detour. And a handshake.
• "The Look": during stage 10 Lance faked being in bad shape only to roar back and leave everyone, including Jan, in the dust. He looked back before powering away, at his teammate Chechu Rubiera, but the angle makes it look like he looked straight at Jan.
• When Jan misjudged a corner during the descend on stage 13 Lance waited for him.
• At their arrival at Luz Ardiden, after a hard day of fighting they crossed the finish line almost side by side. Lance actually easing up and allowing Jan to cross first, and Jan reached back and shook his hand.
In 2002 Jan wasn't at the the Tour de France because he got busted for doping and subsequently kicked off his team, Telekom.
And Lance actually went on record advising Jan to race for his former team captain Bjarne Riis.
The 2003 Tour de France is Ullrichstrong big bang.
It was the heat wave of 2003 and as Jan operates amazingly in the heat he absolutely smoked Lance, who doesn't handle heat at all.
The race was so close that year that Lance was considering getting off his bike and abandoning during the first time trial (which Jan won, putting 1 and a half minutes into him). Their time difference was so close before the last, and deciding, time trial that Jan went with the sprinters on stage 18 for ONE bonus second.
But what really cements them as sporting rivalry of epic proportions is what happened during stage 15.
Lance's handle bars caught on a fans bag and he and Ivan Mayo went down, Jan barely avoiding hitting them. And despite Jan's directeur sportif, Rudy Pevenage, telling him to go ahead Jan waited for Lance. Later saying if he had won the stage, or the Tour, because of taking advantage of Lance's bad luck, the stage and the Tour was not worth winning.
And you gotta understand, this is not AT ALL like what Lance did in 2001. Back then the jersey was not in play, in 2003 it ABSOLUTELY WAS. Jan literally passed up his chance to win a second Tour, to be fair toward Lance.
Jan even revealed how he was relieved when Lance was back with them after his fall. While Lance said he would have been annoyed. But, as Lance says, "Jan is just a sweetheart."
And, what you also gotta understand, Jan was the only one Lance was afraid of. Pantani, Mayo, Basso, Vinokurov? They may have been annoyances, but only Jan made him get up earlier and put the fear of god in him.
(And that is despite Pantani working him over so hard in 2000 Lance admittedly considered abandoning the Tour).
Lance apparently trolled the internet and mined contacts to get info on Jan, to the point Tyler Hamilton thought Lance had an intern doing it for him before realizing Lance was doing it HIMSELF.
He would force Postal's team doctor Michele Ferrari to dawn disguises and spy on Jan.
Johan Bruyneel, Lance's directeur sportif, would also mine contacts.
They were watching Jan like fucking hawks.
(Granted Jan's side was pretty much doing the same, although not as obsessively).
In 2004 Jan was back in the flock with Telekom but his Tour de France didn't go all too well as he was severely sick.
He actually noticed early on that he was too sick to compete correctly and encouraged his young teammate Alexander Klöden to attack instead. He would help him as much as he could along the way.
One instance to note though was during the last time trial. Bruyneel said: "You know, Lance and Jan never really spoke that much. They basically didn't speak, but I'll always remember being with Lance at the doping control after he'd won the final time trial in 2004, and Ullrich coming over and giving Lance a hug. He said, "Ach, come on, it's only a bike race.""
This was the only Tour de France Jan raced where he missed the podium.
In 2005 Jan was doing better and managed to come in third. But what's really amazing is what happend after.
Not only the final podium where Lance kept saying, "I'm gonna get to Basso," only to circle right back and gush about Jan.
You see, Jan actually showed up at Lance's victory party, took the mike and gave a speech in Lance's honor in English.
Lance himself says he wouldn't have been man enough to do the same for Jan, and he still tears up to this day while telling this story.
Lance retired in 2005 and Jan was forced to retire after the Fuentes scandal in 2006.
Before Jan could try and win a second Tour in Lance's absence. Even while saying a win in Lance's absence is worth less.
And even after Lance came clean about his doping in 2013, and everything came out about what a dick he was (forcing teammates to dope as well, intimidating whistle blowers, to name just two) Jan maintained, "He never did anything to me, but was always fair and respectful."
Lance apparently decided to hand the 'get out of jail free'-card to the one guy who was the biggest threat to him.
And you gotta understand, Lance literally destroyed people back then. He was not just a grade A asshole, he was insane, and he could have EASILY went and did the same fucking thing to Jan.
But he never did.
They didn't really seem to have had much contact after their retirements.
Jan struggling immensely with depression and burnout after being forced to retire and deciding to not confess to his doping, opting instead to stay silent and shoulder the burden on his own.
He wouldn't even be able to touch a bicycle until 2010.
There were sporadic mentions of Lance from Jan.
How he tried to connect in 2010 but was unable to.
How it isn't good for the Tour de France as a whole that Lance's wins were taken away in 2013.
In 2017 Lance attacked ASO on twitter for not inviting Jan to the start of the Tour de France in Düsseldorf.
Jan, at this point, had already been in a downward spiral, that Lance, admittedly, knew about.
Lemme make it short, Jan was having a life crisis after his wife left him and took the kids in 2018 and was in the midst of destroying himself with alcohol and coke.
His family and friends, old teammates, even his old trainers, the German movie star Til Schweiger, all tried to help and didn't manage to.
So in a last ditch effort Mike Baldinger, Jan's best friend, called Lance to come in and talk to Jan.
Saying Lance is the only man Jan respects and fears too much not to listen to.
So Lance flew in to visit Jan in rehab. And mind you, Lance was willing to fly in lawyers and doctors to help Jan. He organized rehab in the US in fact.
That's not exactly the route Jan took, but his route also led him to 2021, where he had pretty well recovered from his 2018 fall.
It was the first time Jan went on his (now) yearly Mallorca Tour with Lance, George Hincapie and Johan Bruyneel.
During the podcast they recorded Lance revealed how his wife asked him if Jan was still okay and he said, "Anna asked me that the other day. She asked, Jan's still good right? And I said, I'm pretty sure I would be one of the first calls. And I would be on the next flight."
And at the end of 2021, as Jan now revealed in his new amazon documentary, he had a relapse while on vacation in Cuba.
On the flight back to Mexiko he apparently went berserk and had to be taken off the plane and to the hospital. And when Mike learned what happened he called Lance and asked him to go to Mexico and take care of Jan, which Lance did IMMEDIATELY.
Lance explained how he watched Jan come to in his hospital bed and how Jan looked at him so confused and shocked and how he just nodded and went, "Yeah. I'm here."
So Mike and Lance get Jan into another rehad and I find out in the news that Lance APPARENTLY gifted Jan a black ring with stones on the inside for GOOD LUCK?!?!
(Yeah sure "good luck", you two are married)
Add to that, ALWAYS when asked why Lance is helping Jan, why he is going so hard for him, he says, "because I love him."
2022 marked the 25th anniversary of Jan winning the Tour and Lance actually agreed to be interviewed for the documentary series "Being Jan Ullrich" and for the book "Jan Ullrich - the best there never was" by Daniel Friebe that was also released that year.
Even going so far as to telling Friebe that if he was out to write a hatchet piece about Jan, to not even bother coming to Aspen because he would not utter one bad word about Jan.
At the end of 2022 Jan went to California with Paul Ripke (who he did a podcast with an became fast friends with. He is the photographer behind the BottAss calendar btw) and they met up with Lance, and the two of them went to a basketball game together. And who knows what else they got up to😏
Jan saying in a post on instagram: "Lance and I had a lot of mutual respect even as opponents. After our careers, we both went through a lot and were able to understand how the other is doing. And then when I needed help, Lance was there the next day. That's when you realize: I'm really important to him, it's not just a blah blah, there's something behind it. It's a great friendship.”
This year (2023) Lance also agreed to be interviewed for the documentary series Jan did with amazon.
And of course they also met again on Mallorca.
During that podcast Lance was surprised to hear Jan wanted to be at George's Fondo in 2024, and planned to do something similar himself (with George visiting). He stopped the two dead in their tracks and declared, "if Jan is gonna be there I am gonna be there." And that after George was ribbing him for not having been at his Fondo for some years now. But if Jan's gonna be there Lance is gonna be there.
Or when Lance explained that he was fitter this year because apparently George called him fat in April, only to turn to Jan and assure him, "I would never say that to you."
Because, as Lance openly admits, back in the day he was obsessively studying Jan's body, just to know his level of fitness before the Tour; adding to Jan's body image issues.
Then the amazon documentary dropped in November and so did the GAYEST FUCKING MAGAZINE COVER I HAVE EVER SEEN.
Seriously, whos idea was that and who okayed it??
There are probably things I skipped but their history is literally way too fucking rich.
Their story is like Senna v Prost, or Anquetil v Poulidor, you cannot tell one of their stories without also telling the other's. They are way too interwoven and way too emotionally attached to each other.
This is more than just ship tropes, and at the same time they are a walking talking ship trope and literally ship themselves.
Height difference? Check.
Age difference? Check.
Virgo x Sagittarius relationship.
East vs west trope.
Shared daddy issues.
Hot vs Cold.
They are so entirely and fundamentally different.
Lance was a natural leader and had great mental fortitude, while Jan enjoyed way more to follow a leader like Riis and struggled a lot mentally.
Where Jan had immense pressure from the German media, Lance never had any from the US.
Lance was such a dickhead during his pro years. He had a literal 'no friends' rule enforced on US Postal, forbidding his teammates from fraternizing with other teams, meanwhile Jan was such a genuinely nice guy to everyone that you are hard pressed to find someone saying or recalling something bad about him.
On one had it's fun to compare their rivalry and subsequent later friendship to other sports rivalries like Poulidor and Anquetil, or Senna and Prost, while on the other hand what Jan and Lance have is on a fundamentally different level.
Like Bruyneel said, they didn't talk a lot during the races. George even recalls how Jan would scarcely speak during races, but apparently despite this those two had the biggest level of respect and fear and admiration and even love for each other.
To the point where Lance was the literally only person able to get through to Jan at his lowest. Even his fucking mother and brothers couldn't get through to him, but Lance could.