Jan Ullrich says he won't follow Lance Armstrong's lead in making public confession

Jan Ullrich, Lance Armstrong’s greatest rival during the seven editions of the Tour de France that the American won between 1999 and 2005, insists that he will not be following the former US Postal rider’s lead in making a public confession to doping.

Armstrong, last year banned from sport for life and stripped of results including those seven Tour victories, admitted to chat show host Oprah Winfrey on Thursday that he had won those maillots jaunes with the assistance of banned substances including EPO.

However, Ullrich, speaking to the news magazine Focus, maintained: "I will certainly not follow Armstrong's path and speak before an audience of millions, even though some may be demanding that or even expect me to do so," reports the website Supersport.com.

The German won the Tour de France in 1997 and finished second overall on five other occasions, three times as runner-up to Armstrong.

Tour organisers ASO have decided not to reassign the victories in the races from which Armstrong has been disqualified, instead leaving the winner’s name blank.

Ullrich, who retired in 2007, himself received two-year ban from the Court of Arbitration for Sport in February last year and was stripped of results dating back to 1 May 2005, including his third-place finish behind Armstrong in that year’s Tour.

Those disciplinary proceedings resulted from the 39-year-old German’s links to Operacion Puerto, although Ullrich himself has only ever admitted to consulting with Eufemiano Fuentes, the Spanish doctor at the centre of that scandal, rather than actually using banned drugs.

Fuentes and six others, including former ONCE and Liberty Seguros team manager Manolo Saiz, are due to go on trial next week in Madrid in connection with Operacion Puerto.

The trial, at which cyclists including Alberto Contador are expected to appear as witnesses, is due to last until March.