FORMER Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich announced his retirement from competitive cycling Monday, eight months after his career was put on hold by a doping investigation.

The 33-year-old German, who won the sport’s most prestigious race in 1997, said at a presentation in Hamburg he would work as an adviser to the small Austrian Volksbank team.

Ullrich was withdrawn from the T-Mobile team before last year’s Tour de France after being linked with the Operation Puerta doping investigation in Spain.

He was suspended and then dropped by his team despite his insistence he was not involved.

Since then Ullrich has been without a professional team, although he has not been charged with a doping offence.

In a 43-minute monologue before the TV cameras, he slammed the way he had been treated by the German cycling community and described his continuing disbelief at the decision to prevent him riding the 2006 Tour.

“That was one of the worst days of my life,” said Ullrich. “I was in good form and we were convinced we could go all out for the win.”

Ullrich also won the 1999 Tour of Spain and two medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, gold in the road race and silver in the time trial.(SD-Agencies)