Word: ullrichs
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...Axel Ullrich U3 Founder and Board Member 57, German...
...Ullrich is, as Armstrong has said, the world's most talented rider. As a rookie in 1996, the German came in second in the tour only because he had to let his team's leader take the championship--in cycling everyone else works for the top dog. In 1997 Ullrich was the boss rider, and he won by more than 9 min. Ullrich's legs are so powerful that while Armstrong often does 100 pedal r.p.m.s up mountains in a low gear, Ullrich rides alongside at 75 r.p.m.s at a higher one. Ullrich came to this tour in the best...
...that day approaching the Alpe d'Huez, one of the most famous climbs in cycling, Armstrong was struggling. For six hours, Ullrich's Telekom team had set a nasty pace; riders were dropping out of the main pack by the minute, from above, looking to be almost falling down the mountain. All of Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service teammates, except for his mountain concierge, Roberto Heras, had slipped into the wake, leaving him unprotected...
...grimace, sweat pouring down it, struggling in the back of the group, looked like he was going down. But at the foot of Alpe d'Huez, a 3,712-ft. climb, Armstrong's face suddenly relaxed, and he flew to the front. He pedaled directly in front of Ullrich, turned his head and stared him down for three seconds. Then he blasted up the mountain, alone. In those few seconds, the 23-day Tour de France was over...
Armstrong added bluffing to his repertoire, playing pedal-a-dope and forcing Ullrich and his team to do a day's worth of windbreaking work at the front of the field. "When I saw the camera motorcycles pulling up to me, I put on a mask of pain. It was the ideal script, a chance to play a little game of poker. Every time I grimaced, I could feel the Telekom team accelerating," he said after the race. "It wasn't premeditated. It's just a trick we decided to pull during the stage...