Jan Ullrich has potential to spoil Armstrong's run

"My form is improving. The bad weight is gone, the good weight has remained."

Cyclist Jan Ullrich of Germany

It's become a Tour de France routine: Jan Ullrich emerges from winter overweight, trains hard in spring, gets injured or sick but manages somehow to rediscover his form for cycling's showcase race in July -- only to finish second to Lance Armstrong.

Ullrich's lead-up hasn't been that different this year, either, only this time the German hopes to be on top of the podium when the Tour ends on Paris' Champs-Elysees on July 25.

The pressure on Ullrich to succeed this year is perhaps greater than ever. Hugely talented and powerful, the 30-year-old risks being remembered as one of the Tour's great underachievers if he fails to derail Armstrong's drive for a record sixth title.

Ullrich was one of the youngest Tour champions when he notched up his only win in 1997, aged just 23. He has since finished second four times -- three of those to Armstrong. Last year's race was their closest yet, but again Ullrich fell short.

This year sees Ullrich reunited with the team, then called Telekom but now renamed T-Mobile, he won with seven years ago.

But Ullrich's hopes of dislodging Armstrong suffered a blow just three weeks before the Tour's July 3 start, when his Kazak teammate Alexandre Vinokourov dislocated his right shoulder in a crash, ruling him out of the race. Vinokourov, a powerful climber who finished third last year, and Ullrich could together have proved a handful for Armstrong.

Ullrich, meanwhile, started the year his usual bloated self and again got ill. After failing to finish the Amstel Gold Race and the Fleche Wallonne in April, he skipped the Henninger Turn one-day classic in Frankfurt and the Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and disappeared to his Swiss residence.

There, he trained in a room built to simulate the oxygen-depleted conditions of high altitude. He also went to France to ride the Alpine stages of this year's Tour, including the famed 21-hairpin bend climb to the L'Alpe d'Huez ski resort.

Re-emerging tanned and leaner five weeks later, Ullrich finished seventh, just 59 seconds behind, in the weeklong Tour of Germany in early June.

"My form is improving. The bad weight is gone, the good weight has remained," Ullrich said after placing second in the first stage, a time trial.

"I just now hope to stay healthy and not fall," he added. "I have a good feeling for the Tour."

Ullrich also won the warm-up Tour de Suisse on Sunday, a victory he said "whets my appetite for more."

Armstrong rates Ullrich, who tends to get stronger as the Tour progresses, as his biggest rival. As usual, their race will likely be decided in the second half of the three-week race, in mountain stages and time trials.

"When we get to the Alps and the Pyrenees, I'll be in top shape," Ullrich predicted.

Ullrich was born in former East Germany in the northern port city of Rostock, where he borrowed a bike and ran his first race at age 10 for a local sports club.

A precocious talent, he won the world road amateur championship in 1993, when Armstrong won the professional crown. Ullrich then burst onto the Tour in 1996, when he took the first of his seven stage victories and finished second overall.

He followed his 1997 win with second places in 1998, 2000 and 2001, and took gold in the road race at the 2000 Sydney Olympics -- a medal he aims to defend this August in Athens.

But Ullrich has faced criticism that he lacks self-discipline, a value drummed into pupils at the rigorous East German sports schools he attended.

His fondness for home-baked cakes, hearty meals and good times is legendary.

"Fans used to come to my home and knock on the door, just to see if I could get through the door frame," Ullrich said, joking about his weight.

In 2002, idled and depressed after knee surgery that excluded him from the Tour, Ullrich tested positive for amphetamines. He said he took "two little pills" in a night club and was not taking performance-enhancing drugs.

He also had his driving license confiscated for driving his Porsche drunk.

Expectations for Ullrich were low when he returned for the 2003 Tour with a team salvaged at the last minute from money problems by Italian bike manufacturer Bianchi.

But the German, buoyed by the birth of his daughter, Sarah Maria, just before the race, was sensational, pushing Armstrong almost to breaking point. Only when Ullrich fell in a rain-soaked time trial on the penultimate day was the Texan assured of victory.

Again, Ullrich finished second. But back home in Germany he was a winner, beating Michael Schumacher and his record sixth Formula One driving championship for Athlete of the Year award.

Tour Web site: www.letour.fr