Until a few years ago, Jan Ullrich lived in the shadow of his old successes like on a dizzying roller coaster. Doping, loss of confidence and fame, divorce, drugs, depression, alcohol, aggression, courts, psychiatry… During 2018, it fell completely to the bottom. “I almost ended up like Pantani,” he admitted last year, recalling the sad fate of his big Italian rival, who overdosed on cocaine.
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But now, at age 48, Ullrich has appeared in public as a man who has literally risen from the ashes. He auctioned a yellow Pinarello yellow bike from the 1998 Tour de France for Ukrainian children. He started pedaling again and suffocates that he is a man who has recovered. Whether this will be the case permanently remains to be seen.
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Almost everyone was taking performance-enhancing substances at the time, and I wasn’t doing anything that others would. The scam for me starts where I would gain an advantage over others. But that was not the case, I just wanted to level my chances.
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He started in Rostock as “Ossi”, a citizen of the then German Democratic Republic. He won his first race when he was nine, in the early eighties. He rode a rented bicycle and had no shoes on his feet, but only ordinary sports shoes made in East Germany. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, he and his coach and colleagues moved to the amateur cycling club in Hamburg, in the right Germany.
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His career started fantastically. He became an example of an East German citizen whose life was united by the unification of the country. In 1993, at the age of 19, he won the Amateur World Championships. In two years he switched to the professionals of the radiant team Telekom (later T-Mobile), the Mercedes of world cycling. The following year he was second on the Tour de France and won the “Big Lady” at 24. By the way, it was the year when another excellent German cyclist, Olaf Ludwig, ended his career.
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Cyclist Jan Ullrich once won the Tour de France.
Germany went crazy from Ullrich, the whole nation went crazy about cycling. He was well on his way to the highest goals. But no matter what he did, he never went up. He was unlucky. It was a time when professional pelotons began to be crushed by doping cases. In 1998, he lost the Tour after a hard fight with Mark Pantani, but that year was already fully affected by the affair. It was given the ugly name “Tour de Dopage” (Doping Tour). The following year, the German did not start the Tour due to a knee injury, but at least won the Vuelta. And then came Lance Armstrong, and everyone else was unlucky against the greatest doping mage in cycling history.
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In 1999, Ullrich won the World Cup and a year later brought gold from the Sydney Olympics. But he only finished behind Armstrong on the Tour. Three times the second, the fourth, and then the third, but the bronze was finally taken from him.
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The year 2006 changed Ullrich’s whole life, a deep fall came. Doping scandals have fully collapsed in professional cycling. During Gira, Ullrich’s name was dropped in connection with “Operation Puerto,” a Spanish police campaign against the doping cobweb of the infamous Dr. Fuentes. It was just a suspicion, and Ullrich denied everything. But the day before the start of the Tour de France on June 30, his team announced that he would not let him start. Other cyclists did the same. During the 18th stage, the last blow came. The T-Mobile stable fired Ullrich.
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Jan Ullrich in court in Switzerland.
There were 12 hard years, when the German star was ground by an anti-doping campaign on all fronts. Endless investigations and accusations. But he escaped clear verdicts for a long time and continued to deny any guilt. Also in February 2007, when he announced his retirement. “Today I am ending my career as a professional cyclist. I have never cheated as a cyclist, “he said at a press conference, adding that he would act as an advisor to Team Volksbank.
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It took another five years for the cage to finally fall. In February 2012, the International Sports Arbitration found him guilty of doping, and a few months later he was stripped of all the medals he had won since May 2005. He lost, for example, third place in the Tour de France and victory in the Tour de Suisse. Even worse, he became the outcast of the best German athlete of the 20th century.
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Finally, he also confessed to the use of blood doping. Although a confession of how to take it. “Almost everyone at the time was taking performance-enhancing substances and I was not doing anything that others would not do. The scam for me starts where I would gain an advantage over others. But that was not the case, I just wanted to equalize my chances, “he described the long-term situation in the professional peloton in Focus magazine in 2013.
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Jan Ullrich in 2018, when it was the worst. He just had to leave a hotel in Miami, where he called the scene.
It was worse and worse. Thanks to his drunken and drug escapades, Jan Ullrich only filled the sections of tabloid newspapers. Drunken drunk in Switzerland, suspended for four years and a heavy fine of 10,000 euros (almost 250,000 crowns). Breaking up with his wife Sara, an incident in Mallorca with a neighbor, actor and director Til Schweiger, after which he ended up in the police. And immediately after returning to Germany, an attack on a prostitute he strangled at a hotel in Frankfurt. Fortunately, nothing happened to the woman and Ullrich ended up “only” in psychiatry. Then he paid another fine of 7,200 euros (175,000 crowns).
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It looked crazy with him. But when he was at his worst, his eternal shadow, Lance Armstrong, struck. He also flew with his doctor to see Ullrich and helped him get back on his feet.
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As Ullrich is, everyone could see on YouTube a recording of a special meeting organized by Lance Armstrong in Mallorca last year as part of the World Road Cycling Championships. In addition to Armstrong and Ullrich, George Hincapie, a former racer, and Johann Bruynell, a former director of Armstrong’s stable, also sat on the sofa by the sea. All the great doping sinners of the past, who now praised the good condition and return to the life of their German friend.
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“We don’t have to mention the previous years, but you’re here, you’re healthy and you’re a whole different person,” Armstrong told Ullrich. “Absolutely. You know my story, I had big problems three years ago, you flew in, you visited me. I was on a similar path to Marco Pantani at the time, I was almost dead. Then I got together and now I’m happy, “Ullrich replied.
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