Excellent article from the London Times this morning in regards to Ullrich.... appears that he is pulled the curtains down, taken the phone off the hook and is watching re-runs of the Marienhof... (German version of Neighbours)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,28910-2273640,00.html
Tour de France : Ullrich faces up to sack as T-Mobile take hard line
By Jeremy Whittle
Our correspondent hears how a team reeling from the latest scandal hope to lead the fight against doping
OUTSIDE the Ibis Hotel in Béziers, the Mediterranean heat is infernal. But Christian Frommert is staying cool, despite the hate mail he is getting for throwing Jan Ullrich out of the T-Mobile team for the Tour de France. Yet Frommert is not a drugs squad officer, the president of a sporting federation or a race promoter; he is Ullrich’s sponsor.
Frommert is the director of communications at T-Mobile. After seven years of domination by Lance Armstrong, the German team went to the start of this year’s Tour in Strasbourg with their leader, Ullrich, the 1997 champion, as the man to beat. The German rider, as much a star in his home nation as Michael Schumacher, had won the Tour of Switzerland and appeared to be in peak form. But a doping scandal, centred on the anonymous Madrid apartment of a Spanish sports doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes, was gaining momentum.
NI_MPU('middle');Ullrich, Ivan Basso, his fellow Tour favourite, and 56 other riders were said to be involved in a longstanding blood-doping ring. The Guardia Civil investigation, nicknamed Operación Puerto, appeared to reach into every corner of the cycling world. Now, unless there is a dramatic development, Ullrich’s contract with T-Mobile is likely to be terminated by the end of this month.
As the Tour loomed large, Frommert and Luuc Eisenga, T-Mobile’s media officer, expected the worst. “The first real concerns we had came after the article in El País on the Monday before the Tour started,” Frommert said. “They were concrete accusations, but we had no proof. Then on the Friday morning, at 9.25, we got a fax from the Tour organisation. The team presentation was due to begin at 9.30 — so we made the decision immediately.”
The exact content of that fax, detailing the findings of the Spanish investigation, remains secret, but the German media have now printed damaging allegations that Ullrich and his coach, Rudy Pevenage, obtained a pharmacopoeia of products from Fuentes. The contents of the fax left few doubts in Frommert’s mind.
“The decision to suspend Jan only took one minute,” he said. “On the Wednesday and Thursday we had made plans according to what might happen, so we had strategies in place. When the proof arrived, we took the decision. But we had also discussed it with Jan every step of the way.
“On Thursday evening we told him that if there was no new proof that he could ride the Tour, but that if there was new evidence we’d stop him. He said ‘OK — I understand’.”
The fax showed that, contrary to what Ullrich and Pevenage had maintained to Frommert and Eisenga, there had been regular contact with Fuentes. “There had been phone calls, text messages,” Frommert said. “In one call they talked about ‘the third person’ having won and that was the day Jan won a time-trial stage in the Giro d’Italia.”
But Ullrich appeared unable to take in the seriousness of his predicament. “On Friday at about midday I went to his room,” Frommert said. “He was still training on his stationary bike. I said ‘look — these are the facts . . . ’ He said he still wanted to ride, but I told him he couldn’t.”
Frommert said that he pleaded with Ullrich to undergo a DNA test. “But he decided not to. The whole situation might possibly have been solved if he’d agreed to do it,” he said.
After all the scandals of the past ten years, principally revolving around the spread of blood doping, Frommert understands that professional cyclists can no longer rely on the presumption of innocence.
“The principle of society is innocence until guilt is proven,” Frommert said, “but Jan had more to lose than just a start at the 2006 Tour, more than just his contract with us. His reputation and credibility were at stake. I told him weeks ago that he had to take a DNA test, but he kept saying no.”
NI_MPU('middle');For T-Mobile, German cycling and the Tour itself, the Ullrich scandal has been a catastrophe. “It’s a deep crisis,” Frommert said. “But we think this is a great chance to be very open and very clear about the way ahead. We think there’s a possibility for change and want to play an active part. It’s an opportunity and we have a responsibility to try to take it.”
T-Mobile has sponsored cycling, both professionally and at amateur level, for 15 years. The team have won the Tour twice, through Bjarne Riis in 1996 and Ullrich in 1997, and have a women’s team. The company also sponsors the Tour of Britain and its investment in the professional scene is estimated to be more than €100 million (about £69 million).
“Sponsoring is not just about brand awareness any more, so it’s really important that you have values,” Frommert said. “You have to attack doping with money and power. We owe this to the riders, the organisers, the media and the public.”
Ullrich is now suspended by T-Mobile. “When he left Strasbourg, he said ‘I will prove my innocence’, but we have heard nothing from him or his management,” Frommert said. “Last week we asked him again to prove his innocence, but heard nothing. So the next step is to terminate his contract.”
Withdrawing Ullrich from the team at the eleventh hour has not done much for Frommert’s popularity in Germany. “I have had e-mails saying ‘You’re a liar’ and ‘I will kill you’ and so on, but we stand for a proper sport,” he said.
“Maybe it’s still not a totally clean Tour, but that’s not the issue. You have to take a stand for clean sport.”
Both Frommert and Eisenga are baffled that so many riders have evaded detection in standard UCI (International Cycling Union) doping controls. “How can it be that riders can take all these products — hormones, testosterone, insulin — and nobody catches them? The testing is not adequate,” Frommert said. They argue that now there is proof of this because most of the riders on the Guardia Civil list have never been caught by UCI controls. “The UCI have to play a more proactive role,” Frommert said, “and we fully support random testing, whenever they want. People say they have never tested positive, but that doesn’t mean anything any more.”
Yet T-Mobile sponsored a rider, Riis, who has yet to live down using that very line. Riis, winner of the Tour in 1996, answered a question on his own use of doping products on Danish TV with the response: “I have never tested positive.” He is now directeur sportif of Basso’s CSC team. T-Mobile have doubts that Ullrich’s malpractice was confined only to 2006. “From the documents, you can see that maybe it was in 2005 and 2004, also,” Frommert said. His company will never again take on a rider who brings with him his own entourage of “advisers”. Despite their traumas, as sponsors of the Tour of Britain, T-Mobile will bring a strong team to the British stage race in late August. “It’s an important event for us,” Frommert said. “But we’ll definitely be coming without Jan and Rudy.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,28910-2273640,00.html
Tour de France : Ullrich faces up to sack as T-Mobile take hard line
By Jeremy Whittle
Our correspondent hears how a team reeling from the latest scandal hope to lead the fight against doping
Frommert is the director of communications at T-Mobile. After seven years of domination by Lance Armstrong, the German team went to the start of this year’s Tour in Strasbourg with their leader, Ullrich, the 1997 champion, as the man to beat. The German rider, as much a star in his home nation as Michael Schumacher, had won the Tour of Switzerland and appeared to be in peak form. But a doping scandal, centred on the anonymous Madrid apartment of a Spanish sports doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes, was gaining momentum.
NI_MPU('middle');Ullrich, Ivan Basso, his fellow Tour favourite, and 56 other riders were said to be involved in a longstanding blood-doping ring. The Guardia Civil investigation, nicknamed Operación Puerto, appeared to reach into every corner of the cycling world. Now, unless there is a dramatic development, Ullrich’s contract with T-Mobile is likely to be terminated by the end of this month.
As the Tour loomed large, Frommert and Luuc Eisenga, T-Mobile’s media officer, expected the worst. “The first real concerns we had came after the article in El País on the Monday before the Tour started,” Frommert said. “They were concrete accusations, but we had no proof. Then on the Friday morning, at 9.25, we got a fax from the Tour organisation. The team presentation was due to begin at 9.30 — so we made the decision immediately.”
The exact content of that fax, detailing the findings of the Spanish investigation, remains secret, but the German media have now printed damaging allegations that Ullrich and his coach, Rudy Pevenage, obtained a pharmacopoeia of products from Fuentes. The contents of the fax left few doubts in Frommert’s mind.
“The decision to suspend Jan only took one minute,” he said. “On the Wednesday and Thursday we had made plans according to what might happen, so we had strategies in place. When the proof arrived, we took the decision. But we had also discussed it with Jan every step of the way.
“On Thursday evening we told him that if there was no new proof that he could ride the Tour, but that if there was new evidence we’d stop him. He said ‘OK — I understand’.”
The fax showed that, contrary to what Ullrich and Pevenage had maintained to Frommert and Eisenga, there had been regular contact with Fuentes. “There had been phone calls, text messages,” Frommert said. “In one call they talked about ‘the third person’ having won and that was the day Jan won a time-trial stage in the Giro d’Italia.”
But Ullrich appeared unable to take in the seriousness of his predicament. “On Friday at about midday I went to his room,” Frommert said. “He was still training on his stationary bike. I said ‘look — these are the facts . . . ’ He said he still wanted to ride, but I told him he couldn’t.”
Frommert said that he pleaded with Ullrich to undergo a DNA test. “But he decided not to. The whole situation might possibly have been solved if he’d agreed to do it,” he said.
After all the scandals of the past ten years, principally revolving around the spread of blood doping, Frommert understands that professional cyclists can no longer rely on the presumption of innocence.
“The principle of society is innocence until guilt is proven,” Frommert said, “but Jan had more to lose than just a start at the 2006 Tour, more than just his contract with us. His reputation and credibility were at stake. I told him weeks ago that he had to take a DNA test, but he kept saying no.”
NI_MPU('middle');For T-Mobile, German cycling and the Tour itself, the Ullrich scandal has been a catastrophe. “It’s a deep crisis,” Frommert said. “But we think this is a great chance to be very open and very clear about the way ahead. We think there’s a possibility for change and want to play an active part. It’s an opportunity and we have a responsibility to try to take it.”
T-Mobile has sponsored cycling, both professionally and at amateur level, for 15 years. The team have won the Tour twice, through Bjarne Riis in 1996 and Ullrich in 1997, and have a women’s team. The company also sponsors the Tour of Britain and its investment in the professional scene is estimated to be more than €100 million (about £69 million).
“Sponsoring is not just about brand awareness any more, so it’s really important that you have values,” Frommert said. “You have to attack doping with money and power. We owe this to the riders, the organisers, the media and the public.”
Ullrich is now suspended by T-Mobile. “When he left Strasbourg, he said ‘I will prove my innocence’, but we have heard nothing from him or his management,” Frommert said. “Last week we asked him again to prove his innocence, but heard nothing. So the next step is to terminate his contract.”
Withdrawing Ullrich from the team at the eleventh hour has not done much for Frommert’s popularity in Germany. “I have had e-mails saying ‘You’re a liar’ and ‘I will kill you’ and so on, but we stand for a proper sport,” he said.
“Maybe it’s still not a totally clean Tour, but that’s not the issue. You have to take a stand for clean sport.”
Both Frommert and Eisenga are baffled that so many riders have evaded detection in standard UCI (International Cycling Union) doping controls. “How can it be that riders can take all these products — hormones, testosterone, insulin — and nobody catches them? The testing is not adequate,” Frommert said. They argue that now there is proof of this because most of the riders on the Guardia Civil list have never been caught by UCI controls. “The UCI have to play a more proactive role,” Frommert said, “and we fully support random testing, whenever they want. People say they have never tested positive, but that doesn’t mean anything any more.”
Yet T-Mobile sponsored a rider, Riis, who has yet to live down using that very line. Riis, winner of the Tour in 1996, answered a question on his own use of doping products on Danish TV with the response: “I have never tested positive.” He is now directeur sportif of Basso’s CSC team. T-Mobile have doubts that Ullrich’s malpractice was confined only to 2006. “From the documents, you can see that maybe it was in 2005 and 2004, also,” Frommert said. His company will never again take on a rider who brings with him his own entourage of “advisers”. Despite their traumas, as sponsors of the Tour of Britain, T-Mobile will bring a strong team to the British stage race in late August. “It’s an important event for us,” Frommert said. “But we’ll definitely be coming without Jan and Rudy.”
