Jan Ullrich (here in yellow during his playing days) talks about his life. © dpa

Jan Ullrich unpacks: “Smoked 800 cigarettes a day”

After almost two decades of silence and a violent alcohol and drug crash, Jan Ullrich speaks for the first time about years of doping in his Telekom team. The German didn't mince his words.

21 November 2023

From: dpa/dl

“I don’t know if you can understand that from today’s perspective. But at the time it all felt completely normal,” the ex-cyclist told “Stern”. Doping to maintain equal opportunities - this is how the banned substances were justified. “Without helping, that was the widespread perception at the time, it would be like going to a shooting armed with only a knife,” added the 49-year-old.

Ullrich was the first and so far only German to win the Tour of France in 1997. The whole republic celebrated him like a pop star. Two years earlier he had moved to the top racing team Telekom and there he “learned pretty quickly that doping was widespread,” as he said.

Jan Ullrich 2013 in Sulden: For a long time he was “a master of repression”. © on

Long before Ullrich, many of his former teammates had made doping confessions - he refused. “Because I didn’t have the strength to do it. My past weighed on me so much. It was so big and so stressful. That’s also why I was a master at repression for many years,” he noted.

He used to always say that he never cheated on anyone. The Rostock native also refrained from using a clear phrase like “I doped” in this interview. This final step may follow in the documentary “Jan Ullrich – The Hunted”, which can be seen on Amazon Prime from November 28th.

Lawyers advised silence

Ullrich involuntarily ended his career in 2006 and quickly became an undesirable person in cycling. The trigger was his connections to the Spanish doping doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, and his team suspended him immediately before the start of the tour. At that time and for many years afterwards, the athlete denied everything.

“Lives depended on it, families, friends.” Jan Ullrich, who denied doping for a long time

“I didn't want to be a traitor. “I didn’t want to come out with half-truths and certainly not with the whole truth,” said Ullrich, justifying it with legal constraints. “Lives depended on it, families, friends. The lawyers told me: Either you go out and tear everything down, or you don't say anything at all." Criminal proceedings were underway against him at the time. “My lawyers recommended that I remain silent. A piece of advice that I followed, but the consequences of which I suffered for a long time.”

Doping inhibition threshold was low back then

In 2012, Ullrich was banned for two years by the International Court of Arbitration for Sports (Cas), and various successes between 2005 and 2006 were revoked. It was initially unclear whether the new statements would have consequences for Ullrich's previous victories - especially in the 1997 Tour. His 2000 Olympic gold should not be in danger because of the ten-year IOC statute of limitations for doping offenses.

Doping was normal in cycling and the inhibition threshold was correspondingly low. “The general attitude was: If you don't do this, how will you survive in a race? Then you ride in the peloton and you know that you are probably one of those who have nothing in it and that's why you have zero chances," said Ullrich.

“If you don’t do that – how are you going to survive in a race?” Jan Ullrich on the previous perception of doping in cycling

Ullrich now regrets not having spoken out in detail about doping earlier. “From today’s perspective, I should have spoken. It would have been very hard for a brief moment, but after that life would have been easier.”

Whiskey, cocaine, 800 cigarettes a day

So things turned out differently - and Ullrich privately slid deeper and deeper towards the abyss. In 2015 he moved to Mallorca with his family to start a new life. “But it didn’t work for me. On the contrary. In the end, the crash followed – it couldn’t get that deep, any deeper,” said Ullrich. Because of his alcohol escapades, his then wife Sara went back to Germany with their three children. Then the “total crash” began.

“At one point I was smoking 700 to 800 cigarettes a day.” Jan Ullrich about his total crash in Mallorca in 2015

Ullrich drank “whiskey like water” and did coke, he says in the Amazon documentary, as can be seen in the trailer. False friends came along. “At that time I came up with some challenges. One was that I wanted to set a world record for smoking. At one point I smoked 700 to 800 cigarettes a day. The guys around me, these hyenas, applauded,” the ex-athlete recalled. At some point Ullrich ended up in a prison cell. This crash, “which almost cost me my life,” was the reason to turn his life around and now go public.

Ex-rival Armstrong as a great helper

A big help was his once greatest rival Lance Armstrong, who was stripped of seven Tour successes because of doping. “I was completely lost. Friends tried everything back then, they called my former teammates, my former coaches – no chance,” Ullrich told “Zeit Magazin” in a joint interview with Armstrong.

Lance Armstrong (l.) and Jan Ullrich were probably the greatest rivals in cycling history. © APA

“After all, the only person who could reach me, they believed, was Lance. We didn't have close contact at the time, I didn't know beforehand that he was coming to me. I'll never forget the fact that he got on the plane right away." The American persuaded Ullrich to go through withdrawal so that he wouldn't end up like the Italian Marco Pantani, who died of an overdose in 2004. “I couldn’t bear to lose another one of us,” Armstrong said. “I didn't know what to expect. But I love this man. It broke my heart that he was so unwell.”

After all the crashes, Ullrich is optimistic. “Thank God I came out of the whole thing healthy, I feel like cycling again and want to see my children grow up. I’m hungry for life again.”