Geneva: Germany’s only Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich was allegedly almost three times over the drink-driving limit when he crashed his car and injured two people in Switzerland, a newspaper reported Wednesday
“I’m sorry. Thank God that nobody died,” the retired star, who last year admitted to doping, was quoted as telling Swiss tabloid Blick.
“I was under stress, I was coming from an appointment and I wanted to get home as soon as possible,” added Ullrich, who lives in Switzerland.
Police in the Thurgau region, where Monday night’s crash occurred, said in a statement that a man responsible for a crash failed a breathalyser test and was stripped of his driving licence on the spot.
The test revealed a level of 1.4 grammes of alcohol per litre of blood. The legal limit in Switzerland is 0.5 grammes.
Follow up tests were due on blood and urine samples, police said.
According to Blick, Ullrich said that he was driving 20 kilometres (12 miles) per hour over the speed limit.
“My God, this could happen to anyone,” Blick quoted him as saying.
The newspaper said that he was categorical that drink was not to blame for the crash, which occurred outside the village of Mattwil in northern Switzerland.
“There wasn’t any alcohol involved,” Ullrich said.
Contacted by AFP, Thurgau police declined to name Ullrich.
“We never give any information about the identity of people involved people in a case of a car accident,” they said.
In the statement, they said simply that a 41-year-old driver failed to brake in time at a junction and crashed into the back of another vehicle which had pulled up at a stop sign.
While Ullrich turned 40 last December, it is standard practice for Swiss police to give a person’s age according to their next birthday, if it falls in the year in which an incident occurs.
The car that was hit was thrown into a field, overturned and then came to rest on its wheels, while the 41-year-old’s car went on to collide with another vehicle and also went off the road.
