FRANKFURT, July 6: Top German cyclist Jan Ullrich, who tested positive for an amphetamine, said on Saturday he accepted the result and admitted taking pills while out the night before the test.

Ullrich, who tested positive on June 12 while recovering from a knee operation at a rehabilitation clinic in Bad Wiessee, south of Munich, said he took the pills in a personal crisis but denied it was to boost his performance.

The 1997 Tour de France winner, the first German to achieve the feat, faces a sports jury trial that could result in a one-year suspension, although his Deutsche Telekom-sponsored team said it would not sack its top rider.

“For me it is not at all doping and in all the years of my whole career I have never tried banned substances to improve my performance,” Ullrich told a news conference in Frankfurt, which was broadcast live on German television.

“I accept the positive probe. I will skip taking the B-test. It was stupidity, it was just a big mistake.”

Ullrich had been given until midnight on Friday to decide whether he wanted the B-test on a second sample.

The cyclist said he did not know who gave him the pills, and did not even know what they were.

“I can’t say anything about those pills,” Ullrich said. “I’ve never taken such pills before. I don’t know what Ecstasy looks like.

“I did not feel anything at all (after taking them). When the doping test was taken the following day I didn’t think I had done anything wrong. I was shocked when I learned the test was positive.”

A public prosecutor in Munich told German television he had opened an investigation after Ullrich’s public confession he consumed an illegal drug.

Ullrich had pulled out of this year’s Tour de France, due to start on Saturday, after undergoing knee surgery on May 28 to cure a problem he has had since late last year.

Ullrich said he had become frustrated after he tried to return to full training several times this year.

“For me there was no visible progress,” he said. “I thought it would get better after the operation but it didn’t. For me, this was a minor life crisis.

“I think it’s only human that in such a situation I sometimes wanted to make the rounds with friends.”

The positive drug test is the latest blow to a rider who seems to have been followed by bad news in recent months.

In June, a court banned Ullrich from driving for a year after he knocked over a rack and some bikes with his Porsche outside a hotel in southern Germany in the early hours of May 1.

He fled the scene and was later found to have had three times the permitted level of alcohol in his blood.

Ullrich said he now intends to visit friends, relax and forget about cycling for a while.

“I’m not going to watch the Tour on television,” he said. “I’m not going sit down and watch all the others cycling.

“I’ll start to prepare my comeback,” he added. “I’m not going to sit here and take that. I hope I’ll get out of this mess eventually.”

Cyclists can be banned for between six and twelve months for taking amphetamines, however the Deutsche Telekom team, and his doctor, said they believed this was not a case of doping.

“A stimulating drug doesn’t make any sense in a rehabilitation phase. This is not a doping case but a personal failure,” said Hubert Hoerterer, the physician treating Ullrich.

Olaf Ludwig, spokesman for Team Telekom, which Ullrich joined in 1995, added: “In this human tragedy we stand by him. We’ve celebrated big successes with him, and we will support him in this difficult situation.

“We are not supporting him blindly. We are giving him a second chance, but it is up to him to take it.”—Reuters