+++ UPDATE +++
+++ PARTICIPATION IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE +++ THE COMPETITION HAS ENDED +++
He was the first and only German to win the Tour de France in 1997 and rode his way into the hearts of cycling fans with Team Telekom. His thrilling duels with Lance Armstrong and Marco Pantani kept millions glued to their TV screens. But then: doping scandal, end of career, alcohol and drug abuse. Jan Ullrich's fall from grace is one of the most tragic in the history of sport. How did it come to this?
Cycling reporters give an insight behind the scenes of the Tour de France
25 years after the legendary Tour de France victory, Sebastian Moll attempts to answer this question. As a cycling journalist, he followed Jan Ullrich's career from the very beginning and looks back on the rise and fall of the top athlete in this book. He takes a critical look at the entire system of cycling and categorises the era of Armstrong, Ullrich and their contemporaries in a way that has never been done before.
- The fallen hero: the moving story of Germany's greatest cycling star
- How did it get this far? Could the deep fall of the professional cyclist have been prevented?
- The cycling system: How the media, politics, fans and sponsors contributed to the crisis
- What remains after high-performance sport: the difficult search for one's own identity
"Torture yourself, you pig" - a new look at doping and the pressure to perform
Almost overnight, Jan Ullrich went from being the nation's favourite to a whipping boy. Yet he was only representative of what had been going wrong in cycling for a long time. Sebastian Moll takes a different look at this tragic athlete's biography. He analyses Ullrich's career in a sympathetic and appreciative manner, thereby awakening understanding for the highs and lows of a top athlete whose unique talent was both a curse and a blessing.
Find out more about the book at Delius Klasing Publishing House GmbH.
