BERLIN (Reuters) -- T-Mobile leader Jan Ullrich missed the official presentation of his new team on Monday because of a row with his previous stable, Bianchi.

The former Tour de France winner will ride in 2004 for T-Mobile, the former Team Telekom stable, which will be named after its new main sponsor, one of the German telecommunications giant's units.

Ullrich, who competed for Team Telekom from 1995 to 2002 and was with them when he became the only German to win the Tour in 1997, agreed in October to join T-Mobile from Bianchi.

But Bianchi executive manager Jacques Hanegraaf then refused to pay wages he still owed Ullrich because the rider attended a T-Mobile news conference to advertise the signing without his agreement.

To avoid further escalation in the dispute, Ullrich decided not to go to Monday's presentation in Cologne.

"It's a pity but it was Jan's decision," said T-Mobile chief Walter Godefroot. "I've never seen anything like this in cycling. It is only normal for the team to meet and present its objectives for the year to come."

T-Mobile has a new name but an unchanged goal, which is to end five-times winner Lance Armstrong's supremacy in the Tour de France.

Ullrich, 29, staged a remarkable comeback from a lean spell featuring a career-threatening knee injury and a doping ban to take second place behind Armstrong on this year's Tour.

At T-Mobile, he will rely on a strong team also featuring Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov, who came third on this year's Tour, time-trial specialist Santiago Botero of Colombia and former Giro winner Paolo Savoldelli of Italy. "We have one of the best teams in the world," said Godefroot. "There is Armstrong and there is Ullrich, but I think we are stronger in depth (than Armstrong's U.S. Postal team)."