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Ullrich won't confess to more than blood doping

By Cycling News

published 24 June 2013

Also denies having doped in East German and amateur years

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Tour de Suisse winner Jan Ullrich is kissed on the podium(Image credit: AFP Photo)

Ullrich to base, do you copy? Jan Ullrich makes contact with the T-Mobile mobile before the stage start(Image credit: Fotoreporter Sirotti)

The exclusion of Jan Ullrich from the 2006 Tour started a downward spiral of German cycling.(Image credit: Bettini Photo)

Jan Ullrich has admitted to blood doping with Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, but that is as far as he was willing to go in this doping confession. He refused to address the question of ever having used EPO, and denied having used doping products before he turned professional.

Ullrich confesses to blood doping with Fuentes

German National Anti-Doping Agency to pursue Ullrich

In an interview with the German news magazine Focus, Ullrich said, “Yes, I used Fuentes' treatment. And I was judged and sanctioned for it.” He said further, “I too have made unlawful and wrong decisions in my career. But I did not damage or injure anyone.

“Almost everyone then took performance-enhancing products. I didn't take anything that the others didn't take too,” he said, without going into specifics.

When specifically asked if he had used EPO during his career, he dodged the question and said, “I don't want to keep engaging myself with the past.” He cited a song by German singer Xavier Nadoo, called “Don't look back any more”, which says that one should look back only at the good memories, and forget the rest. “That is what I want to do.”

Ullrich also denied ever having doped or having been doped while attending the former East German sports school. “I was much too young in the DDR years. Up until I was 16 years old, I would say I got really good sport support in the East. We felt really well. No, doping played no role at all for us at that time.”

In 1991, after the Berlin Wall fell and Germany was re-united, Ullrich moved to Hamburg to pursue his career. “It was the same at the start of my amateur days.” He received “bags” of minerals and food supplements from helpers, but “always gave them back. That changed when I turned pro.”

Ullrich was suspended from T-Mobile Team the day before the 2006 Tour de France after news of his involvement with Fuentes broke. He announced his retirement in February 2007, and later that spring his DNA was used to identify his blood at Fuentes' lab. In February 2012 the Court of Arbitraiton for Sport gave him a back-dated two year ban for doping, which expires this summer.