Jan Left Alone

If there was ever a fall from grace that would encourage riders to race clean, it is that of Jan Ullrich. The once talented cyclist, was the first German and one of the youngest riders in history to win the Tour de France in 1997 at just 24 years old. Obviously he had natural ability.  From being at the top of his sport for nearly 10 years, he eventually fell to the bottom when it became public his career was embroiled in drugs and shame.

Today,  the Swiss Olympic (Ullrich resided in Switzerland) disciplinary committee which was still investigating Ullrich’s alleged involvement with Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes and Operacion Puerto, ruled that it had no jurisdiction and closed the case.

Bike Pure think it is a correct decision, time to move on. Famously Lance Armstrong’s great rival - Ullrich’s career was inspirational, but was doped by a team who had their drug regime famously directed by two doctors at Freiburg University.

Cycling has moved on, it is five years since Jan was prevented from riding the Tour de France. His career correlated with endemic drug use in the peloton. It is now time to focus on the talented young champions emerging. We hope these riders are now free to choose to win clean. We hope teams support riders to win with honor and that the years where they were offered drugs after dinner are over.  Bike Pure.

Footnote:

On 3 August 2006, doping expert Werner Franke claimed Ullrich purchased about €35,000 worth of doping products a year based on documents uncovered in the Operación Puerto doping case.  On 14 September 2006, officials raided Ullrich’s house and collected DNA material while Ullrich was honeymooning. On 4 April 2007, Ullrich’s DNA sample, had “without a doubt” matched nine bags of blood taken from Eufemiano Fuentes’ office.