Germany's 1997 Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich is considering taking legal action against German weekly magazine Der Spiegel which has accused him and his team, Deutsche Telekom, of drug taking.
The magazine claims that Ullrich spent a night in a hotel apart from the Telekom team following a stage of the 1997 Tour de France to avoid doping controls after a team test showed his red corpsucle count above the safety limit of 50.
Der Spiegel claims to have acquired the team's training programme for last year, which shows that Telekom riders take performance-boosting erythropoietine (EPO).
The 25-year-old East German-born rider, runner-up in the 1998 Tour de France, refuted the allegations in the German newspaper Bild and said that his success was based on hard work and not on performance-enhancing drugs.
"I didn't take drugs, I don't take drugs and I wouldn't take drugs" he said. "I won't let anyone take away my sporting achievements from me, because I've worked hard, very hard, to achieve them."
The magistrate investigating the 1998 Tour de France has cleared France's two leading cycling officials, FFC president Daniel Baal and his closest aide Roger Legeay, of all charges. Lille Magistrate Patrick Keil dropped the charges, saying there was "insufficient evidence."
