Germany's public television network ARD will terminate its contract with 1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich at year's end.
Ullrich had been paid up to US$152,000 for exclusive interviews, diaries and appearances in ARD entertainment shows.
ARD gave no reason for ending the contract, which had run since 1999 except for a one-year break in 2002 when Ullrich was banned for testing positive for amphetamines.
Meanwhile, Germany's top sports official asked Ullrich to come clean about doping allegations.
``Get things sorted out, take a DNA test, come out clean,'' urged Thomas Bach, an International Olympic Committee vice-president and chairman of the German Olympic Sports Association, in an interview with Sport-Bild weekly released Tuesday.
``It would be a relief for him, and it would be a step forward in reclaiming the sport's credibility,'' Bach was quoted as saying.
Ullrich and eight other cyclists were barred from this year's Tour de France amid allegations they had been assisted in doping by Spanish sports doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, who is under investigation. Spanish police arrested five people at a Madrid clinic in May after seizing drugs and frozen blood.
Ullrich's T-Mobile team later fired him.
The German rider has denied the allegations and has declined to submit to a DNA test.
German newspapers also reported that Ullrich, who lives in Switzerland, married his companion Sara Steinhauser during the weekend.
© The Canadian Press, 2007
