Jan Ullrich's Tour de France victory in 1997 triggered a cycling boom in Germany. It was Team Telekom's second overall victory in France after Bjarne Riis in 1996. But it was a German winner that really popularised the sport in Germany. Subsequently, Ullrich and Zabel in particular rose to national sporting prominence.
The nine riders of the victorious 1997 Tour team took very different paths in life after the end of their careers: some remained in professional cycling, others deliberately sought distance. The majority of them, however, were caught up in doping revelations. An overview:
Jan Ullrich
For the now 50-year-old, one thing is certain: He may have steered his life in the right direction at the last minute. With his overall victory in the 1997 Tour de France, Ullrich suddenly became a German sporting idol - and then developed into a tragic figure. He was never to win the Tour of France a second time, finishing second four times in the following years. Shortly before the start of the 2006 Tour de France, Ullrich was excluded from the Tour due to his involvement in the "Operacion Puerto" doping investigation. In 2012, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found him guilty in this matter.
However, Ullrich, who ended his career in 2007, refused to confess to doping for many years. This was followed by a downward spiral through alcohol, drugs, penalty orders and public ostracism. In 2023, Ullrich made his long-awaited doping confession as part of a documentary - and appears to have put an end to his escapades. He has now been living in Merdingen again for several years, organises cycling tours and most recently worked as an expert for the TV channel Eurosport during the Tour de France.
Erik Zabel
The name Zabel has continued to be represented in professional cycling in recent years, primarily by his son Rick Zabel. Accordingly, father Erik Zabel was also always on site at races and was even part of the same team as his son as Performance Manager at Katusha-Alpecin in 2019. He has remained loyal to cycling anyway and has been working as a consultant for the Koblenz-based bike manufacturer Canyon for several years.
In the slipstream of Ullrich, Zabel became the second face of the German cycling boom in the 1990s. His trademark was the Tour de France green jersey, which Zabel won six times in a row between 1996 and 2001. As a sprinter, the now 54-year-old also had an impressive record of over 200 career victories. However, his career was also overshadowed by the doping shadow of that time: in 2007, Zabel made a first, timid confession of doping, followed by a comprehensive confession in 2013 that he had doped from 1996 to 2003.
Bjarne Riis
The Dane has since turned his back on cycling. Instead, the 60-year-old is now the co-founder of a company that distributes Heat pumps in Denmark. In 2007, Riis admitted to having doped with EPO between 1993 and 1998. However, his victory for Team Telekom in the Tour de France remained in the results lists as the offences were time-barred. For the 1997 Tour, however, Riis had to recognise that Ullrich was the stronger rider in the team - and subordinated himself.
After the end of his career, Riis switched to the role of manager and built up the Danish team CSC, which was among the world's best for years under various names. However, a report by the Danish anti-doping agency ADD in 2015 revealed years of doping offences in the team, and Riis had already been dismissed a few months earlier in a dispute with the then team owner Oleg Tinkov. He was subsequently involved with several smaller Danish teams, and in 2020 he also served as team manager at the World Tour team NTT for a year.
Udo Bölts
The career of the now 58-year-old is characterised above all by one sentence: "Torture yourself, you bastard!", shouted Bölts to Ullrich at the 1997 Tour de France when he briefly weakened on the 18th stage through the Vosges. As a tireless helper, Bölts played a major part in the overall success back then. Bölts remained active in cycling until 2003 and was meanwhile the German record rider with 13 Tour participations before Jens Voigt took over from him.
In 2007, Bölts admitted to having doped with EPO and growth hormones in 1996 and 1997 in the course of the doping scandal surrounding Team Telekom. As a result, Bölts had to give up his position as sporting director at Team Gerolsteiner. Bölts now works at the Pfälzerwald Mountain Bike Park, where he looks after the hiking trails and mountain bike routes and occasionally races off-road himself. He has trademarked the phrase "torture yourself, you bastard!
Rolf Aldag
As sporting director after his active career, Aldag has had the most consistent career from the former Telekom circle in cycling. Aldag has also been a TV pundit for Eurosport for several years. In sporting terms, the 56-year-old has now been in charge of the German World Tour racing team as sports director for two years Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. He had previously worked in various positions for the teams Bahrain-Victorious, Canyon-SRAM, Dimension Data, Quick-Step, HTC-Highroad and Team T-Mobile. Aldag ended his active career at the end of 2005, and two years later he announced at a press conference with Erik Zabel that he had been taking EPO since 1995.
Georg Totschnig
Instead of cycling, the Austrian's life is now dominated by property. The 53-year-old's estate agent's office is located in the Zillertal municipality of Uderns. He took part in the 1997 Tour as a mountain helper for Ullrich. However, Totschnig celebrated his greatest successes with Team Gerolsteiner, for whom he finished the Tour of France in seventh place in 2004 and won a stage in 2005. Nine years later, Totschnig's name surfaced at the "Special Commission on Doping" in Austria. According to this, Totschnig was alleged to have received blood bags for blood doping in 2005. However, Totschnig denied the allegations in the trial proceedings and was subsequently charged with giving false testimony. He was acquitted in 2012 as a witness for the prosecution revised her statement.
Giovanni Lombardi
After his career, the Italian switched to a consultancy role and founded the agency LAM Sports, which he still runs today. His biggest client is three-time world champion Peter Sagan. Other big names in his portfolio include Elia Viviani, Filippo Ganna, Rafal Majka and Enric Mas. At the 1997 Tour de France, he was a sprint helper for Zabel. He later supported compatriot Mario Cipollini in the same role. Lombardi's own successes were not neglected either: the now 55-year-old won four stages of the Giro d'Italia in his career.
Christian Henn
Henn worked as Performance Director at the Continental team Lotto-Kernhaus until 2020. Since then, he has not made any major public appearances. He ended his active career in 1999 after a positive doping test for testosterone, for which he was banned for six months. He later accompanied Team Gerolsteiner and Team Milram as sporting director until 2010. In 2007, like the majority of his former Telekom colleagues, he confessed to having doped with EPO between 1995 and 1999.
Jens Heppner
The now 59-year-old now organises event and cycle tours on Mallorca and in South Africa. Heppner rode for Team Telekom for ten years until 2002. However, when several of his former team-mates confessed to doping in 2007, Heppner denied having any knowledge of the incidents within the team. At that time, he had been working for several years as sports director at Team Wiesenhof and also as a pundit for the TV channel Eurosport.
However, due to the doping revelations at Team Telekom, Eurosport ended its collaboration with Heppner. In 2013, the anti-doping commission in France published retrospective analyses of doping samples from 1998 - EPO was detected in Heppner. As a result, he had to give up his position as sporting director at Team NetApp. Heppner never returned to professional cycling.
