Jan Ullrich has finally fully confessed to doping, including before he won the 1997 Tour de France, revealing how he opted for the lowest risk when choosing a blood doping programme with the infamous Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes.
“Yes, I doped,” Ullrich said to Stern and other German media after a pre-release screening of the four-part documentary ‘Der Gejagte’ (‘The Hunted’), which will be released on Amazon Prime in Germany from November 28.
Ullrich’s victory in the 1997 Tour de France made him the poster boy for a boom in German cycling and he remains the only German to ever have won the sport’s biggest race.
He became Lance Armstrong’s biggest rival in the sport after the Texan returned to racing following treatment for testicular cancer, but he never managed to beat Armstrong or win the Tour again, finishing second in 1998, 2000, 2001 and 2003.
Ullrich’s career ended abruptly when he was pulled from the 2006 Tour before the start in Strasbourg after serious accusations of blood doping emerged.
Ullrich confessed to working with Dr. Fuentes back in 2013 and has more recently indicated he doped and tried to justify why.
Now he has openly confessed to doping just before the release of the documentary, which comes after the two years of filming and research. The process was part of Ullrich’s period of introspection after a mental and physical breakdown in 2018, fuelled by whisky and cocaine, almost killed him.
The documentary will initially be available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland but the production company behind it is negotiating with other territories.
During the filming of the documentary, Ullrich visited Marco Pantani’s home town of Cesenatico and met his parents, learning of the tragedy of Pantani’s death after several years of cocaine use and mental illness. Pantani’s mother attended the pre-release showing of the documentary in Munich on Wednesday, along with Ivan Basso and Ullrich’s former directeurs sportifs at Team Telekom, Rudy Pevenage and Olaf Ludwig.
“It was a huge shock for me at the time,” Ullrich said of Pantani’s death in a long interview with Armstrong published in Germany newspaper Zeit.
Armstrong travelled to Europe to help Ullrich when he was at his lowest in 2018 and the two fierce rivals are now good friends.
“His mum was incredibly touched when I stood in front of her, there is a real connection. Even if it sounds trite: in a way we are like one big family,” Ullrich said of Pantani.
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