2023-11-21 01:24:38
Jan Ullrich spoke for the first time about years of doping in Team Telekom and justified the use of banned substances with a lack of equal opportunities. “Without helping, the widespread perception at the time was that it would be like going to a shooting armed with only a knife,” the 49-year-old told the Stern. After joining the then top German racing team in 1995, he “learned pretty quickly that doping was widespread.”
1997 Ullrich had was the only German to date to win the Tour de France. In Sydney he became Olympic champion in 2000.
However, he did not want to go public with the equal opportunity argument in 2006 after he was suspended from the team because of connections to the Spanish doping doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. “I didn’t want to be a traitor. I didn’t want to come out with half-truths and certainly not with the whole truth,” said Ullrich, citing legal constraints. “There were livelihoods hanging on it, families, friends. The lawyers told me: Either you go out and tear everything down, or you don’t say anything at all.”
The sentence “I doped” doesn’t come off his lips in the interview. Until now, he said, he hadn’t had the strength for that. Ullrich talks about doping without explicitly confessing.
Nothing in it, zero chances
If you follow Ullrich, doping was normal in cycling and the inhibition threshold was correspondingly low. “The general attitude was: If you don’t do that – how are you going to survive in a race? Then you ride in the peloton and you know you’re probably one of those who have nothing in it and that’s why you have zero chances,” said Ullrich .
Ullrich now regrets not having spoken out in detail about doping earlier. “From today’s perspective, I should have spoken. It would have been very hard for a brief moment, but after that life would have been easier,” said the Rostock native. However, there is no point in mourning it.
In 2007, drivers like Bert Dietz, Christian Henn, Udo Bölts, Rolf Aldag, Erik Zabel and Bjarne Riis publicly admitted doping. Ullrich did not join his teammates. “There was still criminal proceedings going on against me at the time,” he said. “My lawyers advised me to remain silent. Advice that I followed, but the consequences of which I suffered for a long time,” he said.
Fought back with Armstrong’s help
In 2012, Ullrich was banned for two years by the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and various successes between 2005 and 2006 were revoked. Between 2010 and 2020, Ullrich fell into a personal crisis and wanted to start a new life by moving to Mallorca in 2015. “But it didn’t work for me. On the contrary. In the end, the crash followed – it couldn’t get that deep, any deeper,” said Ullrich. He drank, did cocaine. His wife at the time, Sara, then went back to Germany with their three children; he remained alone on the island. Then the “total crash” began, said Ullrich.
With the help of his once greatest rival Lance Armstrong, among other things, he was able to fight his way out of a long-standing slump and find his way back into a regular everyday life.
Jan Ullrich spoke for the first time about years of doping in Team Telekom and justified the use of banned substances with a lack of equal opportunities. “Without helping, the widespread perception at the time was that it would be like going to a shooting armed with only a knife,” the 49-year-old told the Stern. After joining the then top German racing team in 1995, he “learned pretty quickly that doping was widespread.”
1997 Ullrich had was the only German to date to win the Tour de France. In Sydney he became Olympic champion in 2000.
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