Former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich, unemployed since being fired by T-Mobile in July, says he has been training hard for the 2007 season in hopes that a ProTour team will take a chance on him.

"I am not giving up without a fight and have been cycling three hours every day and going to the gym," Ullrich told Saturday's edition of Bild.

"My aim now is to release all of this pent-up frustration through cycling,” he said. “If I manage to do that I will have a hell of a lot of energy."

Ullrich, Tour de France victor in 1997, was barred from the 2006 Tour de France after allegations of doping arose as a result of Spain’s Operación Puerto investigation.

T-Mobile team officials later fired him after they concluded that he wasn’t cooperating with efforts to clarify whether his was among hundreds of bags of stored blood found in the possession of Spanish physician Eufemio Fuentes. Ullrich, and 2006 Giro d’Italia winner Ivan Basso, have both declined to submit to DNA tests.

Basso, who was recently cleared of charges by his national federation, signed a multi-year deal with the U.S.-based Discovery Channel squad. Several ProTour team managers have objected to the deal, saying that it may have violated a “gentlemen’s agreement” not to offer contracts to riders refusing to cooperate with investigators.

Ullrich, 32, has not yet received an offer from a ProTour team, despite news that Spanish officials had dropped him from the investigation.

The savior? Oleg Tinkov - seen here at last year's Russian economic forum in London - wants to give Ullrich a

Photo: Valery Levitin - (Kommersant Archive File Photo)

The Italian team Tinkoff, backed by Russian millionaire Oleg Tinkov, has offered Ullrich a contract for next season, a deal Ullrich has considered but is reluctant to accept because of the limitations that would place on his season. Tinkov, an avid cyclist and fan of the sport, sold off two major Russian breweries last year for a reported $200 million.

The Tinkoff team races on the European the continental circuit, the second division of cycling, meaning that it would be unlikely for Ullrich to compete in the Tour de France and other ProTour events. While continental teams are invited to participate in ProTour events, those invitations are not likely to extended to teams that have riders under suspicion on their rosters.