In an issue of the German current affairs magazine Focus today, the 1997 Tour winner admitted to using illegal services provided by the controversial Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes to win. “Yes, I had access to treatment from Fuentes,” said Ullrich. "At that time, nearly everyone was using doping substances and I used nothing that the others were not using."
He denied using PEDs, but did admit to undergoing blood transfusions. He refused to acknowledge however that he had cheated in winning the Tour or gold and silver medals at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
"In my view you can only call it cheating on my part when it is clear that I have gained an unfair advantage. That was not the case. All I wanted was everyone to have the same chances of winning.
"It was myself who suffered most because of this episode as concerns my public image and what it meant for my own health. Now it is time to bring down the curtain on all of this. I want to look to the future and no longer be dragged back to the past.”
Thomas Bach, president of the German Olympic federation, said Ullrich’s confession was “too little, too late.”
“Jan Ullrich had his chance for a creditable admission a couple of years ago and he missed it,” said Bach. "Today’s confirmation of some of the already well known and established facts helps neither Jan Ullrich nor cycling.”
Ullrich retired from cycling in 2007 and similarly to Lance Armstrong spent large amounts of money and his retirement battling accusations it later turns out were completely true. German investigative reporter Werner Franke was critical of Ullrich's confession.
"That is a new European record in lying,” Franke told AFP. "In 2006 or 2007, he insisted, in four different languages, that he did not know Mr Fuentes. He then obtained a court injunction against me that took four and a half years to overturn.”
H/T Velonews
Picture Credit: Ray McManus/SPORTSFILE
