Ullrich: "I'll be back!"

By Susan Westemeyer

"I'll be back!," Jan Ullrich told Bild, the biggest German tabloid. "It's not yet been decided where and how, or whether it will be a ProTour team or not, the Tour or the Giro. But I will race again! Those who are against me won't win. I'll be back!"

His wife, Sara, said the couple had a bad time over the summer, after Ullrich was suspended from his T-Mobile team due to his alleged implication in Operación Puerto. "Jan was very depressed after the suspension. He could hardly think clearly for four weeks. Jan was unbelievably sad, because nobody supported him. Everyone was against him, hardly anyone was neutral."

Ullrich noted, "I used to think that I couldn't live without cycling. Now I know that there are other things: my wife, my daughter and my real friends." At the moment, the former Tour de France winner is neither in the possession of a racing license nor a team, and is prosecuted in Germany for fraud.