Ex-Tour de France champ Ullrich retires

FULL STOP: Jan Ullrich announces his retirement from active cycling during a news conference in Hamburg.

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New Delhi: Former Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich ended his cycling career on Monday, still defending himself against doping suspicions.

Ullrich won the Tour in 1997 and was runner-up five times. His retirement comes eight months after he was implicated in a Spanish doping scandal.

He has now decided to stay in the sport as a consultant for the Austrian-based Volksbank team.

Ullrich has been under investigation for several months in Spain's "Operation Puerto" scandal, but has not been charged. He has been without a team since being fired by the T-Mobile team last summer.

"I felt like a dangerous criminal, although I didn't do anything wrong. And it was not funny for me, and that's what I find sad, if somebody asks for a DNA analysis and people think that it is absolutely normal just like drinking water to give my DNA analysis to anybody who wants to have it. For me that was not funny. I did a DNA analysis now, because I want to cooperate with Bonn (where the case is treated) and I want to get rid of the case as quickly as possible," Ullrich had earlier said about the doping scandal.