"Unlike [Lance] Armstrong, [Jan] Ullrich doesn't have the killer instinct. He's not obsessed. It's too bad. Because if you mixed the professionalism of an Erik Zabel with the talent of a Jan Ullrich, you'd have an Eddy Merckx." — T-Mobile team manager Walter Godefroot after the 2004 Tour de France

Jan Ullrich has finally hung up his bibs, saying he never cheated despite pernicious rumors to the contrary, most of them coming from the Operación Puerto inquiry, apparently headed by a Spanish graduate of the Inspector Clouseau Close Cover Before Striking School of Earning Big Pay Through Crime Detection at Home in Your Spare Time.

Ullrich is something of a tragic figure. One Tour victory and he spent the next decade unraveling like a thrift-shop sweater — partying like a college kid; getting busted for amphetamines and serving a six-month suspension; crashing his Porsche (into a bike rack, of all things) and then fleeing the scene; and famously struggling to stay at fighting weight.

All this would've been hard enough to overcome, even for a dedicated, focused athlete. But the aging Wunderkind was up against one of the most hard-headed cyclists ever to grace the international stage — Lance Armstrong, who played him like a cheap fiddle, annually slapping the "greatest threat" label on him and then stomping him like a fat roach besmirching a chic Parisian café.

When Ullrich crashed into a ditch during Stage 13 of the 2001 Tour, Big Tex sat up to wait for him. Some thought it a sporting gesture, but I thought it was more along the lines of a boxer waiting for his opponent to get up off the canvas so he could slug him a few more times, or perhaps a nod to "Highlander" ("There can be only one!")

And when Ullrich extended his hand to Armstrong at the end of the next stage, conceding the Tour, it was clear to me that Armstrong's Jedi mind tricks had worked — the German would always think of himself as second best.

Oh, he had results, a list of palmares that would have been creditable to anyone with less natural talent and a stronger work ethic. But clad in the tarry jersey awarded him by the Spanish inquisition, Ullrich couldn't find a ride, in part because he was said to insist on dragging his ponderous, vampiric entourage along despite the fact that he was no longer one of pro cycling’s rock stars, but rather the two-wheeled equivalent of a Holiday Inn crooner with a cheap Yamaha keyboard and a second-hand drum machine. The final nail in Ullrich’s professional coffin may have been the stupendously bungled Operación Puerto inquiry, but he pounded all the others in by himself.

Now Ullrich will be a "consultant and representative" for the second-tier Austrian Volksbank team. Maybe he's finally found his niche, serving as a good example of a bad example: "Don't do as I did, lads; do as I say."

Speaking of nails, did O'Grady hit this one on the head, or did he flatten his thumb again? Hammer out your thoughts and send them to us at webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. — Editor