Ullrich back on the bike

By Susan Westemeyer

Faked documents, returned cycling licenses, lawsuits and lawyers; all of these things are swirling about in the name of Jan Ullrich, but what is he himself actually doing? "As we speak right now he is on the bike," his press spokesman Michael Lang said Tuesday morning to Cyclingnews.

"He is starting a gradual training and will then go to a training camp in the next two to three weeks," continued the German's spokesman. "Right now he is training alone, but we guess that the next step will be training with one or two other athletes. Then it depends on how things go. The training camp will probably include several other athletes."

Lang also explained why the Ullrich camp feels that Swiss Cycling should not be responsible for any potential proceedings. Normally, proceedings would be held by the federation that had granted the license under which the rider was riding when the alleged violation occurred. However, Lang said, "our lawyers think that the Swiss federation should not be in charge. There is an article in the UCI rules that says if there is a violation which does not involve any positive doping results, as is the case here, then whoever found or started the case should be in charge of the investigation. That is why our lawyers think that the Spanish federation should be in charge of any investigation of Jan Ullrich."

Ullrich is just "trying now to focus and get things done step by step," according to Lang. "We can't say yet where or when he will be applying for a new license. He gave his Swiss license back, and both Germany and Austria said that they don't want to work with him, but there are still lots of options open." He further noted that applications for licenses won't be distributed until the middle of November, "so that he can't even apply for new license for 2007 yet anyway."