Jan Ullrich has admitted to doping during his career with the help of Eufemiano Fuentes. Ullrich’s comments appear in a publication by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The 1997 Tour de France champion insisted that he was not giving himself an unfair advantage, but rather he was simply trying to keep the playing field even. After winning the Tour in 1997, and losing repeatedly to Lance Armstrong after that, Ullrich was kept from racing the 2006 Tour due to suspicions of cheating.
Ullrich’s name came up in the Operación Puerto case during the 2006 Giro d’Italia, but he denied rumors. After being held out of the 2006 Tour, he was fired by his T-Mobile squad.
In February of 2012, Ullrich was found guilty of doping by the Court of Arbitration for Sport and banned retroactively from August 2011, losing all results after May 2005. At that time, Ullrich did not appeal the decision. He admitted that he had had contact with Fuentes, but did not elaborate completely.
Upon admitted to his past deeds, Ullrich took the “everyone else was doing it” road. “Yes, I have taken advantage of the Fuentes treatments,” he stated. “Almost everyone at the time was taking performance enhancing substances. I haven’t taken anything that wasn’t taken by others. For me, a scam is when I get an advantage first. But this was not so. I wanted to ensure an equal opportunity. What I’ve hurt the most is my public perception and my potential health.”
After the admissions of Armstrong, Ullrich sees himself in the same category as the Texan. “I am no better than Armstrong, but no worse either,” the German insisted. “The great heroes of yesteryear are people with flaws, and we must cope with that.
“What makes me angry the most is that Armstrong was protected by the [governing bodies].”
Retired since early 2007, Ullrich sees his transgressions as in the past.
“The subject is history for me. I just want to look forward and not back,” Ullrich said. “I think I have atoned for my error. Everyone makes mistakes. Now it’s a completely different life. I have already served my sentence.
“Luckily everything is [behind me] thanks to my wife and children. If I had been sitting at home, alone, I do not know what would have happened. My family has saved me.”