Former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich is suffering from burnout syndrome, the retired cyclist said Friday. On a day of bad news for the German, Ullrich also lost a much-publicized court case against a doping expert, who claimed the former Olympic champion had paid for performance-enhancing drugs. Ullrich, who was implicated in a major Spanish doping investigation and withdrawn from the 2006 Tour prologue before being sacked by his team, said he had been diagnosed with the energy-sapping illness several days ago. The 1997 Tour de France winner has denied taking banned substances but the Hamburg state court ruled a doping expert could continue claiming the cyclist had paid a Spanish doctor at least 35,000 euros for illegal substances. DNA tests confirmed that some of the bags of blood seized in Spain's Operation Puerto belonged to Ullrich.
