Germany’s former cycling idol Jan Ullrich has again announced revelations in the documentary that will start next year on the “Amazon Prime” streaming service.
“I will travel to all stations again. That reflects my life exactly as it was. Honestly, I’ll drop my pants to process it for myself,” said Ullrich in the podcast “All roads lead to fame” by photographer Paul Ripke.
The four-part documentary series will contain “the great and the less beautiful things” of his life, according to the 1997 Tour de France winner, who had made negative headlines in recent years with numerous alcohol and drug escapades.
“It’s like a pimple that you have to pop out”
Ullrich was suspended from the Tour of France in 2006 for his involvement in the scandal surrounding Spanish doping doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.
The 48-year-old had never spoken publicly about this and his other points of contact with illegal performance enhancement during his active career.
“It’s like a pimple that you have to pop out and then it’ll probably get better. I couldn’t have imagined doing this two years ago. But my environment motivated me and made me realize: ‘With your kind of You just didn’t manage to process it and drifted off into alcohol and drugs. That was the wrong way, try it like this,” Ullrich described his change of heart.
Jan Ullrich reports on “sleepless nights”
The Rostock native reported “sleepless nights”, but also said: “I take responsibility for my mistakes, I’ve always done that. Life is an up and down. It also had many beautiful and good sides. I think , it’s very interesting. A lot of people have told me they’d like to see it. Maybe that’s the processing step now that I need to focus on other things afterwards.”
He repressed what happened for many years and wanted to tick it off for me. That didn’t work. But you have to bring what you’ve experienced back up. I imagine it like this: There are many areas in the brain that are closed. You have to ran again,” said Ullrich.
He often took “the easy way”, but this was “not always the right one”. He compared the processing to climbing Mount Everest. “You have to get over it. But once you’ve done it, it’s a formative experience forever,” said Ullrich.