Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich has opened up on the drug and alcohol addiction which nearly cost him his life.
Ullrich became a huge star in cycling when he won the 1997 Tour de France at the age of just 23. He became a poster boy of German cycling and a fierce rival of Lance Armstrong during an era of the sport which has since been revealed to have been awash with blood doping.
The Olympic gold medal winner always denied cheating, but was banned from competing in the Tour de France in 2006 amid accusations. Ullrich was eventually implicated in the blood doping ring run by infamous Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and was sanctioned for cheating.
It took until 2013 for Ullrich to admit to wrongdoing and, after moving to Mallorca with his family two years later, he tried to continue with his life post-cycling. But Ullrich ended up spiralling into addiction issues on the Spanish island, prompting his wife Sara to split from him and take their children back to Germany.
Ullrich has now opened up on his blood doping past and personal issues ahead of the release of an Amazon Prime documentary series called Der Gejagte (The Hunted). “The crash in 2018 almost cost me my life, I lost a lot,” he told German outlet Stern, adding that he wasn’t “far from death.”
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He added: "The mix of whiskey and cocaine made my heart colder. It brings up all the evil qualities in you. It turns you into a monster in a very short time. If you no longer have a heart, you are no longer human."
During his breakdown, Ullrich was drinking up to two bottles of whiskey a day and taking cocaine. In 2017, Ullrich was convicted of drink driving in Switzerland after an accident three years earlier which saw two people injured.
Jan Ullrich won the 1997 Tour de France (Mike Powell /Allsport/ Getty Images)In 2018 he was arrested for breaking into his neighbour’s home in Mallorca and threatening him. “[He] had almost become a family member but when his wife left him he started taking amphetamines. He would only sleep for two hours,” the neighbour, German filmmaker Til Shweiger, told Bild. “He’d start drinking beer at 6am and went on like that until the evening." Ullrich was later issued with a restraining order by a court in Palma.
Ullrich, 49, has now turned his life around, thanks in part to the help and support from his former rival Armstrong, who flew to Germany to see him after the breakdown. He is now regularly cycling again and said: "I'm hungry for life again. I want to see my children grow up."
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