Jan Ullrich is to open his personal biking museum this Friday, in his residence Black Forest area of Germany.
The previous 1997 Tour de France winner has been been hospitalised and attended rehab for drug and alcohol habit a number of occasions over the previous decade; Ullrich was additionally fined for assaulting a feminine escort and arrested for breaking right into a neighbour’s property, saying in 2018 that he ‘exploded‘ when his ex-wife stated he couldn’t see his youngsters.
The Jan Ullrich Biking Museum’s tagline – ‘Wo täglich neue kraft wachsen’ (the place new power grows day-after-day), suggests a step ahead for the 50-year-old, as he opens the brand new mission in Unhealthy Durrheim.
“I’ve been dreaming of this museum for a very long time,” Ullrich informed Belgian outlet Het Laatste Nieuws.“Not solely to focus on my very own profession, however particularly to advertise biking. However establishing a museum requires a whole lot of time and vitality and is definitely not simple.”
Mercurial even all through his profession, Ullrich has been affected by drink and drug points since he retired promptly in 2006 within the wake of Operacion Puerto. However lately issues are wanting brighter for him. Final 12 months he helped launch a brand new docuseries primarily based on his life referred to as Der Gejagte [The Hunted], and even spoke candidly for the primary time about drug taking within the professional peloton when he was a rider.
On Monday Ullrich was in Roeselare, Belgium, visiting the Koers Museum of Biking, the place he procured a very important piece for his new enterprise – the Bianche time trial bike on which he beat Lance Armstrong within the 2003 Tour de France, the one time he did so. Ullrich additionally borrowed the celeste colour-matched helmet and gloves he wore that day to show amongst his personal installations.
“That bike is mostly a piece of biking historical past,” stated Ulrich. “It is unbelievable that we are able to borrow it and sure, it’s the authentic. We checked that.”
Koers curator Thomas Ameye defined how the bike got here to be at Koers within the first place: “The bicycle has been one of many masterpieces in our assortment for greater than 15 years,”
“It ended up right here via Freddy Maertens and former Dutch bike owner Jacques Hanegraaf, who had been answerable for public relations for Crew Telekom [another of Ullrich’s teams].”
He stated the mortgage was the start of a “great collaboration” and revealed that in return, Ullrich was loaning Koers certainly one of his 1997 yellow jerseys.
Ullrich launched into one other tour – this time of the museum – and stated he had picked up a couple of concepts for his personal.
“You actually discover the fervour for biking right here,” he stated. “What I discover notably particular is which you can uncover each historic tales and up to date assortment objects. What I favored most had been Eddy Merckx’s posters by which he promoted a cigarette model. That might be unthinkable immediately.”
