Jan Ullrich

Page 59 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Re: Re:

Susan Westemeyer said:
Robert5091 said:
Any news on Ullrich's rehab stint?

Not a word. Let's hope this means he is actually getting real help. His first stint at rehab where he talked to the media just about every day turned out poorly.

No news is good news, in other words. Hope he realizes he's in the best place to be and sticks with the program.
 
A small fine for a bad thing he did. Hopefully the woman is doing okay and as no news (at least in English) have come up about Ullrich that he is fixing the nose dive. I wouldn't be surprised if she is/tried to sue him in civil court for the battery.
 
Question: what's known about Jan Ullrich's doping programme?

We have the Freiburg report, which says the team was on EPO from about the same time as Motorola, and then switched to blood bags in the noughties. Throughout this time they had available to them the full range of other products.

How did he end up having to shop at the Lidl of doping that was Fuentes? Was it the prices - just €35k a year - or was it the variety of products available in the centre aisle? Was it Cecchini sent him there?

What is known of his time as a junior, within the GDR doping regime?

As some like to do the whole how-crap-would-Armstrong-have-been-without-the-doping thing, what can we say of Ullrich? That he would have been pretty bad, given his attitude to training?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zam_Olyas
Race Radio, long since gone from this forum, used to claim that Ullrich was a super-responder, due to having a very high density of blood vessels in his legs, or something like that. He never provided any evidence for that, though, other than some claims by some doping doctors, and stories about how in training rides, when he was presumably not doping, Ullrich appeared to be a very ordinary rider.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fmk_RoI
Wow. That's some serious business. Brings up memories of several former cyclists spiraling in a morass of drugs and depression. I hope he can pull out of it, always seemed like a pretty decent guy, but wow. Shocking to read.
 
The following quote is from an "instant-message" dialogue between JV and Frankie Andreu from 2005:
"hell, Kevin [Livingston] was telling me that after 2000 Ullrich never raced over 42%"
Livingston was Ullrich's Telekom teammate only for a brief time period, but JV doesn't appear to question the information in the private conversation that came to light only during the SCA hearings.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fmk_RoI
And Moreau finished 4th on nothing and 39% Hct.

Ullrich was doing what his rivals were doing in 1998 and 2005-2006. There is no reason for me to think that it was any different between those 2 periods.

And edit: Ullrich was likely working with Fuentes since the end of 2003
 
Last edited:
When Ullrich was asked to return his 2000 olympic medals, he refused and emphasized that he got no benefit from his PED use but was only doing what the others did.

Still whereas there is more or less solid information about his PED use in the 1990s from Telekom/Freiburg-report and from D'Hondt and rHuEPO retests etc., very little is known about the years 2000-2003 in which Vaughters (roughly) refers to. My reading is that JV believed the information to be true, accurate or not.

I don't know what to make of the story, because he has since also maintained that nobody of the CA riders doped when the team won the a TT at the 2001 TDF.
 
I don't know what to make of the story, because he has since also maintained that nobody of the CA riders doped when the team won the a TT at the 2001 TDF.
He repeats that claim in the new book, but my reading of it there it was said more in hope than conviction. I mean, if others in the team weren't aware he had gone back on the hot sauce at CA, then how could he expect to know what each of them was really doing? (Plus: it'd be a bit of a miracle given elsewhere in the book he hardly allows any room for clean riders with the exception of the blessèd Bassons.)

I rate the story about the same value as much of the peloton scuttlebut repeated by Hamilton: interesting, but needs corroboration.
 
Race Radio, long since gone from this forum, used to claim that Ullrich was a super-responder, due to having a very high density of blood vessels in his legs, or something like that. He never provided any evidence for that, though, other than some claims by some doping doctors, and stories about how in training rides, when he was presumably not doping, Ullrich appeared to be a very ordinary rider.
As I've said before, I view the super-responder thing as similar to the Higgs constant in string theory: it's a neat explanation without proof.

The high density of blood vessels - it's not that different from saying another rider had more slow-twitch muscles.

Ullrich appearing to be a very ordinary rider in training: my feeling with Ullrich (and it's just a feeling, not fully founded on evidence) is that he needed motivation, he wasn't out there proving himself against everyone all the time. To me, there's a difference between riders like Ullrich and riders like, say, Rasmussen: the latter was massively motivated, driven to succeed, whereas Ullrich, you kind of get the feeling that once he'd proved himself and won the Tour, the desire wasn't there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zam_Olyas
Not OK.

Ullrich is well known around these places, but hopefully he's still doing somewhat well.

I don't think any rider here wishes him unwell?


There hasn't been any news on him for over a year. He went into rehab and vanished after that. He moved back to germany somewhere close to his children they say. and is supposed to have regular contact with them. He is staying low profile. If he was still doing drugs and acting out I guess we would know. So I assume he is doing much better. Hope he isn't drinking though.