Cycling: Ullrich Denies Drug Claims

The 1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich yesterday denied reports he was one of up to 100 athletes believed to have been treated by a Spanish doctor at the centre of an escalating doping scandal.

The denial came after a Spanish radio station linked the German cyclist with Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, one of five people arrested by Spanish police earlier this week. "Jan never worked together with Fuentes," said Stefan Wagner, the spokesman for Ullrich's T-Mobile team.

The denial came amid speculation over the identities of the 100 cyclists and other athletes allegedly involved in a doping network uncovered after a police raid on a laboratory in Madrid this week. The former professional cyclist Jesús Manzano said he had seen footballers and Olympic athletes at the clinic, run by one of two doctors to have been arrested during the investigation.

It was reported that bags of frozen blood, steroids and hormones including the endurance-boosting EPO were found in the raid, while Spanish authorities said yesterday that police had found lists naming more than 100 top-level athletes. Many had been filmed entering or leaving the clinic. Police seized 100 bags of frozen blood and equipment for treating blood as well as documents on doping procedures but their spokesman José Manuel Gallego would not confirm if non-Spanish cyclists were on the lists. "They are high-level athletes," he said. "The lesser ones don't do this because it is expensive."

The insurance company Liberty Seguros yesterday dropped sponsorship of its cycling team, citing the arrest of the team's sporting director Manolo Saiz in the same doping investigation.