Jan Ullrich

Jan Ullrich (German pronunciation: [jan ˈʊlʁɪç] ; born 2 December 1973) is a German former professional road bicycle racer. Ullrich won gold and silver medals in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. He won the 1999 Vuelta a España and the HEW Cyclassics in front of a home crowd in Hamburg in 1997. He had podium finishes in the hilly classic Clásica de San Sebastián. His victorious ride in the 1997 Tour de France led to a bicycle boom in Germany. He retired in February 2007.

In 2006, Ullrich was barred from the Tour de France amid speculation of having doped. In February 2012, Ullrich was found guilty of a doping offence by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. He was retroactively banned from 22 August 2011, and all results gained since May 2005 were removed from his palmarès. In 2013 he admitted to blood doping, and in 2023 to using performance enhancing substances.

Biography

Early life and amateur career

At a young age, Ullrich joined SG Dynamo Rostock (de) in his hometown. He won his first bicycle race at the age of nine while riding in sports shoes and on a rented bicycle. He was educated in the sports training system of the German Democratic Republic, attending the KJS sports school in Berlin in 1986. In 1988, he was champion of the German Democratic Republic. The school closed two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He, his trainer Peter Sager, and teammates joined an amateur club in Hamburg until 1994. In 1991, he was 5th in the amateur cyclo-cross world championships.