http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?...pr06/apr25news
I'm very curious to see how he does. I love Jan, not going to lie. Hope he can pull it together, if not he just needs to call it quits at the end of this season.
The Tour de Romandie, which starts today in Switzerland, will see the long-awaited return to racing of T-Mobile star Jan Ullrich. However, Ullrich's eyes are not on the prizes at Romandie, but on the longer-term goal of the Tour de France.
"I'm not at the Tour de Romandie to win stages or the overall classification, I'm here to prepare for the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France," Ullrich said on Monday, according to Reuters.
"It's not going to be easy because some of the stages of the race are tough but my goal is to get to the finish in Lausanne. I expect to suffer in the mountains but there is nothing I can do about that."
Ullrich plans to ride the Giro d'Italia in May and peak for the Tour de France in July. He was scheduled to start racing much earlier in the season, but has been suffering from a knee problem, which he said recently is now clear. "I'm completely back on track. Now I can put my push hard on the pedals and my knee doesn't hurt. Even after doing speed training, where I pace behind a motorbike, I don't have any problems anymore."
Nevertheless, starting almost two months behind Tour rivals such as Ivan Basso means Ullrich has a lot of ground to make up and he realizes getting into shape by July is going to hurt. "My plans for the season were different and the Giro will be hard but now I have to make the best of it," he said.
"I've been able to train hard for two weeks. This has given me a lot of confidence for the future."