Judgement had been due last week
Originally due to issue a ruling on Thursday, October 20th, the Court of Arbitration for Sport has delayed the announcing of its verdict in relation to the CAS action lodged by the UCI against Jan Ullrich. The new date for a decision is anticipated to be November 30th, a delay of six weeks.
“This shows how complex the case is,” said Ullrich’s agent Falk Nier, according to DPA. “All of us, including Jan, would prefer that the matter is finally settled.”
The CAS hearing was held towards the end of August. It took place after the UCI protested against Antidoping Switzerland over the non-sanctioning of the rider. Last year the Swiss Olympic Committee opted not to pursue an investigation into the rider, who was implicated in Operacion Puerto in 2006.
Despite the five years that have elapsed since then, the UCI told VeloNation in August that it felt obliged to pursue an action. “There are two main reasons,” said UCI spokesman Enrico Carpani then. “First of all, because we can’t accept that just because you say ‘I am retiring’ that we don’t do anything against you. Maybe in the future you could then say you will come back [to racing]…if you are not been sanctioned by UCI you could , and we don’t want that.
“Secondly, and more generally, we can’t from a legal point of view create a precedent. In the future we could have the same situation appearing with another rider who says ‘listen, why are you suing me – you didn’t do the same with Ullrich two or three years ago?’ So we were obliged to do it.”
Ullrich has not raced since being prevented from starting the 2006 Tour de France by his team. In May of that year, a raid on Eufemiano Fuentes’ clinic in Madrid uncovered banned substances and extracted blood; Ullrich was implicated and his DNA was reportedly later matched to one of the bags of blood.
German prosecutors opened a fraud investigation but this was then ended when Ullrich paid a €250,000 fine in March 2008.
The 1997 Tour de France winner experienced difficulties in the wake of his decision to retire. Ullrich announced last year that he was suffering from emotional burnout and withdrawing from public life but more recently said that he had recovered from it, citing a return to cycling training as playing a big part in his improved wellbeing.
He has been riding Gran Fondos, starting with the Giro delle Dolomiti Gran Fondo in Bolzano, Italy, in August. Later that month he finished 84th out of his age group in the Ötztaler Cycling Marathon in Sölden, Austria. Ullrich is due to ride the Gran Fondo Miami on November 20th.