German former cyclist Jan Ullrich opens up completely in his documentary ‘Jan Ullrich-The Hunter’ and explains his descent into hell due to alcohol and drugs. “It’s a mystery how I lasted so long,” he admits. A dangerous path that he began at the end of his career as a professional cyclist. “In 2018 he was really depressed. As a cyclist I suffered, but after my career that suffering went in the wrong direction.”
Ullrich acknowledges that that year “I was at my lowest point, with everything a person could endure physically and mentally. The next step would have been death.” Although the difficulties had begun a couple of years earlier, in 2016, when he stopped being one of the favorites to win the Tour: “I went from being a thoroughbred to a farm horse. That’s difficult and it still hurts me. I created my problems for my mistakes and weaknesses. I was at the top, I fell to hell and now I fight to be in the middle.”
The German ex-cyclist explains that he went nine months without drinking, but everything changed with the first glass: “One day I drank a glass and after a while I lost control. I went from wine to whiskey. First a glass a day, then two, it made me drowsy every week.”
Ullrich believes that he resisted thanks to the great physical shape he was in from having been an elite athlete for so long: “I was a high-level athlete and I could push my body to the extreme. That allowed me to win a Tour, but also go in the other direction. I could drink more whiskey and snort more and more cocaine. “Many people would have committed suicide, but my body resisted.”
The German lived through a true hell in which he even took on challenges that were as surreal as they were dangerous: “I came up with challenges myself. I once wanted to set a world record: I smoked more than seven hundred cigarettes in one day. It’s a mystery how I endured it.” so long”.
