Dan Marino was more talented than Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw.

At the end of the day, who has all the rings?

In my mind, that's what matters. There are plenty of people in the world with a ton of talent that truly do not achieve the level of success that one would have expected. But that's called "potential" and is the worst curse you can put on a person.

Ullrich's problem is that he happened to be at a point in time with another who has a different view of things...
After his first TdF win in 1999, I was at a ceremony in which Armstrong was a nominee for an athletic achievement award, here in Indianapolis. Afterward, at a get together (few people really knew him back then) he was standing there and I went up to him to start talking...and I asked him about the Sestriere stage as that was where he demolished everyone. He chuckled and told me that after multiple rounds of chemo, climbing mountains was easy...
He has/had a different level of pain threshold. He almost died. I suspect that changes your perspective some. It's hard to compete with that.

Cool poster