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Ullrich will not follow Armstrong's example in confessing

By Cycling News

published 20 January 2013

German not planning to speak publicly

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Jan Ullrich at the Gran Fondo Colnago Miami(Image credit: Bruce Hildenbrand)

Jan Ullrich (Team Telekom) started the 1997 Tour de France on Campagnolo aluminum wheels but later switched to carbon rims reportedly made by Lightweight.(Image credit: AFP)

Jan Ullrich gets as close as he'll ever be to the yellow jersey(Image credit: Fotoreporter Sirotti)

Jan Ullrich has stated that he will not follow the example of his former Tour de France rival Lance Armstrong in making a public doping confession.

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Speaking to the German magazine Focus, Ullrich reacted to the interview of Armstrong conducted by Oprah Winfrey in which the banned-for-life rider admitted to doping during each of his seven Tour de France victories.

Ullrich, who retired in 2007 after being implicated in the Operacion Puerto doping ring, is finally serving a two-year ban for the case. Last year he was stripped of his results from May 1, 2005 onward, losing only his third place in the 2005 Tour de France. He remains winner of the 1997 Tour.

The 39-year-old said he is no longer interested in the past, stating "I live in the here and now - very happily", and promising "I will certainly not follow Armstrong's example and speak before an audience of millions, although some have asked me again and again, and perhaps expect it."

Although Ullrich has been linked to some of the dozens of blood bags found in 2006 in the Madrid clinic of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes by DNA comparison in 2007, it was six years before his ban was finally issued by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The Swiss Olympic Committee decided in 2009 that it had no jurisdiction over him.

The UCI appealed the decision to CAS, which partially agreed to overturn the Swiss agency's dismissal. The CAS refused to issue the lifetime ban requested by the UCI on the grounds that Ullrich's previous doping offence for amphetamine use out of competition is no longer an anti-doping violation.