Cyclists around the world can now receive coaching from an AI chatbot version of Sir Bradley Wiggins, following the launch of a new training app called The Coachsters.

The 2012 Tour de France winner is one of six ‘AI mentors’ on the platform – alongside rower Sir Steve Redgrave, cricketer Sir Alastair Cook, and Paralympic cyclist Dame Sarah Story – who have provided real-life interviews that will be enhanced by AI.

Users of The Coachsters will not speak directly with their coach, but will instead pose questions and receive AI-written responses “drawn from their hard-earned wisdom”, according to the website.

Wiggins announced his involvement on Monday with an Instagram post, alongside what appeared to be a glossy, AI-generated portrait of himself.

“Today’s a big day for me,” the five-time Olympic champion wrote. “After months of work – and countless hours of deep interviews – I’m really proud to finally share my new coaching app. Working with the team at The Coachsters, we’ve captured thinking, experiences and lessons that I’ve never shared publicly before, and shaped them into something athletes can access whenever they need it.

“You can ask the app any question you’d ask me in person and receive an answer drawn directly from my own experience. You can even try three questions for free before deciding whether it’s right for you.”

Subscriptions to The Coachsters start at £5 a month for the ‘Lite’ version, which includes three questions a month. Users can ask unlimited questions with the ‘Pro’ version at £22 a month, while £39 a month will also give them access to interviews and group webcasts in the ‘Elite’ tier.

The platform’s launch comes against a backdrop of a growing number of AI training apps. Already, cyclists can subscribe to a virtual coach with HumanGo, or receive AI-powered plans through platforms like Spoked, Vekta, and Garmin Coach. Last spring, Strava acquired AI running app Runna, which claimed in 2023 to have “hundreds of thousands of users”.

“This is coaching for the AI generation,” runs the tagline on The Coachsters website.

For cyclists who prefer to have direct, human interaction in their training, and would like to have an Olympian as their coach, former world champion Lizzie Deignan launched her coaching service Deignan Performance last month. Olympic gold medallist Dani Rowe also offers person-to-person coaching through her business Rowe & King.

One of the great things about cycling as a sport is the regularity with which any of us can find ourselves lining up for a race with some properly good riders. It's especially prevalent in the UK, where traditional races like time trials can attract an entry that runs from veterans who are mainly there to see their friends, to international riders looking to hone form, or test themselves, or in some cases just have a day out.

Sir Bradley Wiggins used to turn up to local races – criteriums as well as time trials – at a point where he was an Olympic champion. And Alex Dowsett's devotion to the local club scene led one journalist to enquire as to why exactly Team Movistar were so keen to win the Maldon and District CC '10'.

What's interesting is the reaction of the other riders when a big-name rider rolls up to the race. For the most part it's an insouciance that we should be proud of. Almost no other group confronted with one of their heroes in real life and doing the very thing that makes them a hero could muster the same sort of indifference we do. It's only just this side of rudeness, and I say well done us.

I've known occasions where a star's bike has attracted more attention than they did. I saw Ed Clancy walk out of a race HQ and have to clear a small crowd from round his bike so he could ride to the start of the race. One of the crowd was audibly disappointed that some guy had taken the cool bike away.

It's not the universal reaction, though. Some people faced with a 'star' go for the cross-examination. "What's the best tyre?" "What do you eat before a race? And during a race? And what brand of oats would you make that with?". "What training should I do? I'd like to go faster, and I need to get my threshold power up by 200 watts".

I've never been a properly big rider, but there was an era when I did used to win quite a lot. I sometimes got the cross-examination, because I wasn't famous enough to generate indifference. Often from the nicest of people, but they'd follow you round before and after the race. I once told one of them (he was getting on my nerves, to be honest) to always stir his porridge clockwise, and he took it on board with such a straight face that I think there's every chance he still does it, while he waits for his 200 watts.

That's annoying, but it's also kind of charming. Less charming is the lecture. Cycling is full of experts with advice to unload, and they are very democratic about it. A friend overheard someone telling Wiggins that his time trial position was all wrong ("Your arms are too close together, Wiggo, you can't breathe properly like that.") while Wiggins was actually wearing the world champion's skinsuit.

Beyond the lecturers are the shoulder-chippers. Someone once said to me, "I'd be better than you if I'd had all the advantages that you do. If I didn't have my stupid children I'd have been able to train properly. If you don't have bloody kids you're basically a cheat". In his defence, I think he used to say the same thing to his kids.

In some ways the truest test is what someone does with the results. The insouciant takes the result as it is. The cross-examiner uses it to work out how he'd have done at the last World Championships. The lecturer works out how much faster the star rider could have gone. And the shoulder-chipper rips the result sheet up with an incoherent roar and gets back to regretting the existence of his children, who will one day do the same for him in his old age.

Acts of Cycling Stupidity

A story that I once heard via a bike rider, and was doubtful about until a few weeks ago when I heard it again via a team director.

In UCI time trials, the commissaires will accept a van as the following vehicle for early riders in a team, to preserve team cars for later starters. One rider at a World Tour race a few years ago was surprised to find the team chef waiting to drive behind him, in the team kitchen truck. This was fine till the rider punctured, and the chef had to leap out of the truck with a spare wheel. The result was, say both chef and rider, a bit of a casserole. I also hope the chef used the team radio to read out the day's dinner specials.

Great Inventions of Cycling: Overshoes

It's hard to pin down the first overshoe, because elements of normal Victorian and Edwardian dress, like spats, show an element of crossover.

Through the era of pedals with toe clips and straps, overshoes had to be relatively thin to fit into the toe clip. The strap would wear holes in the overshoes, so they didn't last long. Often as not a mid-century rider just had cold feet, and will tell you now that it never did them any harm. But bear in mind that the reason most of them walk funny now is that they lost most of their toes to frostbite.

Overshoes got a lot easier to use with clipless pedals in the 1990s, and developed an exciting variety of uses. Originally a means of keeping your feet warm in winter, it wasn't long before they also became a means of making your feet more aerodynamic.

More recently, riders have adopted them as a way of keeping a nice new pair of shoes clean. They're also useful if you're a pro seeking to hide a pair of non-sponsor shoes.

They can also be used to disguise a pair of disgusting 15-year-old shoes with knackered heels and gaffer tape instead of the original closure and save you a fortune in keeping up with your team-mates' S-Works habit.

And finally, for the financially careful pro rider, they can be used to disguise a pair of disgusting 15-year-old non-sponsor shoes.

Sir Bradley Wiggins has said that Team Sky "chucked him under a bus" in relation to doping accusations.

The former Tour de France winner was speaking to The Times ahead of the publication of his new book, The Chain.

"There was something greater going on. [Sky] chucked me under a bus," Wiggins said. "It'll come out."

The still-unresolved 'jiffy-gate' scandal clouded Wiggins' achievements post-retirement, which included Tour glory and five Olympic gold medals.

An investigation was launched into whether a package allegedly received by former Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman for Wiggins at the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2011 contained a legal decongestant, or a banned drug.

A subsequent 14-month inquiry brought few answers but left questions for all involved, including the team's then principal, Sir Dave Brailsford. Brailsford told the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport select committee in 2018 that the package contained Fluimucil. Questions were also raised over the team's and Wiggins's use of therapeutic use exemptions, or TUEs.

The committee wrote in their report: "We believe that drugs were being used by Team Sky, within the WADA rules, to enhance the performance of riders, and not just to treat medical need."

Separately, Freeman received a four-year doping ban for his role in ordering banned substances to British Cycling's HQ in 2011.

Wiggins told Cycling Weekly earlier this year: "I would love to know one way or another what actually happened. The whole story was that it was delivered to me [personally]. I was on the podium at the end of the Dauphiné, and it was made to sound like I got delivered a package."

The 45-year-old also talked of his cocaine addiction, which he speaks about in his book, as well as being the victim of abuse. He revealed in 2022 that he had been groomed and sexually abused by his coach when he was 13.

On his addiction, Wiggins writes in The Chain: "Hundreds of thousands of people roaring me on, millions more watching at home. One of the great moments of London 2012, and there I am in a wardrobe, snorting cocaine [off my gold medal], mocking my achievement, hating it for what I believed it had brought me.

"It was the equivalent of pissing on someone's grave, and in that moment, I was pissing on my own. The gold medal, the Tour de France… All of it was dead to me. The person I'd been in Paris and London was dead to me, too."

He is in the 'apology and accountability' phase of Narcotics Anonymous now, which is behind the book, and revealed that he has also stopped drinking. He has written about his drinking habits before, including in In Pursuit of Glory, his first book.

"If I had three pints now and then someone put a line in front of me, I would probably… Well, I don't know. But I don't drink any more," Wiggins said. "I could go for a month, you know, and not … And then it could just hit me like a fucking brick."

"Gym [helps]. I go every day. I have a daily routine that starts at 6.15. I've made my bed by seven. Immaculate. And I plan my meals for the day. I live like I'm a professional athlete."

The Londoner has also bounced back from his high-profile bankruptcy; he told The Times that he is "out of bankruptcy, with more work than I can cope with".

Wiggins said: "I’m earning more money than I’ve earned in the past six years. I’ve got my own house. I’m not homeless any more. A year ago, I was homeless."

If you've ever seen the 2004 film by the same name, you'll understand that the butterfly effect refers to how small occurrences can effect major changes further down the line.

For most of us, a chain jumping on a bike ride counts as little more than an annoyance. A small occurrence, if you will.

But for Hampshire bike racer Bobby Buenfield, what should have been an innocuous mechanical blip that would have been forgotten well before he'd finished his training ride back in April, the butterfly effect took full hold and turned his day – and his entire year – upside-down.

Instead of the chain settling on to the next sprocket, Buenfield lost control of his bike, which took him up a grass verge and deposited him headlong into a tree at 60kph. The result? A broken back – and months off the bike.

The 18-year-old Tor 2000 Kalas had suffered a compression fracture of the T8 vertebrae, midway up his back. He didn't ride the bike outside again for months.

When he did though he made it count, with an impressive comeback that saw him win what probably counts as Britain's best-loved non-British time trial – the Duo Normand, which happened to be making its own comeback at the same time.

After a false start on the indoor trainer, which only ended up setting him back, Buenfeld made a tentative return to circuit racing in July, getting a few late-summer events under his belt.

But last weekend he dug out the time trial bike for the first time since before his accident – "I'd not even looked at it since April," he says – to see how his back would bear up under the more extreme low-pro position.

He teamed up with friend Jack Baldie of TrainSharp, after a last-minute call-up for what was the return of a Continental time trial that has always enjoyed a special place in the hearts of British testers.

The Duo Normand, based in the small French town of Marigny in the Normandy region, is a two-up time trial that has been won by some of the UK's biggest time trial stars.

It's honours roll dates back to 1982, and among those winners are Chris Boardman, who has won three times, including with Paul Manning (1996) and Jens Voigt (1999), Michael Hutchinson, who teamed up with arch time trialling rival Stuart Dangerfield in 2002, and Sir Bradley Wiggins, who partnered Michael Elijzen of the Netherlands to the win in 2007. More recently, Visma-Lease a Bike star Victor Campenaerts took victory alongside his now-retired countryman Jelle Wallays in 2015.

The 'Duo' was cancelled in 2020 because of the pandemic, and until last weekend, had not been seen since. Many wondered whether it would ever really return, and a false start last year that came to nothing certainly didn't help.

But last month, 21 September, Marigny once again thrummed to the sound of disc wheels and time trialling fans, as well as townsfolk serendipitously caught up in the fray – the Duo Normand was on once again.

Unsurprisingly, it looked a little different to its pre-2020 incarnation. The course – made up of Normandy's bucolic but lumpy back lanes – was shortened from 54km to 40km and run off in the opposite direction. And instead of UK riders making up a significant proportion of the field, Buenfeld and Baldie were left to further the cause alone as the only all-British pair.

Despite the fact he would barely been out of primary school when it was last run, the Duo Normand's reputation preceded it, Buenfeld told Cycling Weekly.

"We knew about it, knew it would be a cool thing to do," he said, "so I was quite excited to get the call-up."

When it came to their hopes of glory, Buenfeld said the pair thought they could have a reasonable chance of doing well in their chosen 'open' category.

"But it was more about going over and enjoying it all," he says, "and any result would be bit of a bonus."

Unfortunately the weather did its best to dampen the occasion, but the riders and the people of Marigny remained unperturbed.

"It's so good," he says. "All the people love it as well. We went on a recce the day before, before we even left the house, we had a Frenchman running up to us with his little course map, telling us all about it… they just all like cycling."

Buenfeld and Baldie recorded 51:17 for the 40km (25-miles) course, which is no pan-flat dragstrip – enough to put them more than a minute ahead of the next pairing, and just 56 seconds behind the only pair entered in the elite category – Clement and Matteo Guilbert, both of nearby Moyon Percy Velo Club.

Buenfeld hopes to be back again, he says, this time with a bit more training under his belt and who knows – if this is the rebirth of the Duo Normand, perhaps with a few more British pairs in support too, as the event makes its way make into the nation's conscience.

To the uninitiated, the Tour de France may seem to be one man in yellow, chased by 180 other riders trying to take it off him, or win stages. But dig a little deeper and it becomes a race of teams and endless tactics, where the fate of a stage can hinge on the cohesion of the group, as well as the individual ambitions of riders.

The Tour de France is a team event, raced by 23 groups of eight, in most cases all working to support their lead rider. Every rider has a role: sprinters vie for stage-wins; GC contenders race for the yellow jersey, with the rest of the team typically made up of domestiques. These are the workers there to support their leader, sheltering them from the wind, keeping them protected in the peloton and supplied up with water, gels, food and clothes grabbed from the team cars when needed.

But how does a team work together effectively? How do these domestiques, all capable riders at the top of their sport, sacrifice individual victories for the sake of the lead rider and their teams?

Professor Stephen Reicher of the University of St. Andrews uses his theories from the world of psychology to try and better understand how the peloton works. An expert in group psychology and identity formation, cycling also has his heart - just to the back of the video call his bike pops half into frame, leaning gently against a towering bookshelf.

“You get this classic tension between the individual and the group, right?” he tells me, blue eyes sparkling.

“If everybody cycled for themselves, the team would lose. So you have to get people who are prepared to cycle for the collective good of the team, people who are prepared to sacrifice themselves, who are prepared to chase down breaks.

And yet, at the same time, of course, they want to win, because why would you get into cycling if you didn’t? And secondly, to get a contract in the future they’ve got to show themselves and display themselves. So there’s always this tension between the individual good and the collective good.”

The key to winning the race is, of course, in investing in great riders, but it also comes down to the strength of the team - and the careful management needed to strike the right balance is echoed in wider sociological trends.

“People in social sciences talk about the tragedy of the commons.”

The thought experiment calls back to the time when land was held in common. If everyone who shared a claim to that land grazed a single sheep, there would be enough space and grass for all. But if a few people decided to introduce a second sheep, there wouldn’t be enough grass to share, and all the sheep - and the people who kept them - would starve.

“So how do you stop people exploiting the system and acting for their individual interest? And how do you limit their individual interest for the sake of the collective good?

“One of the really big temptations is to be what’s called a “free rider” [/loader]. In other words, everybody else has just one sheep, and you sneak in a second one. You do well, and then more and more people become free riders as a consequence.

“And if you think about it, that tragedy of the commons is that over grazing. And the overuse of resources is, if you like, the key issue in the Tour de France - if everybody just sits in the breakaway, it will collapse.”

At this juncture, Dr Reicher reaches for a battered book, placeholders sticking out of the top, pages lovingly worn. It is 'La Société du Peloton', by the Groupama-FDJ rider and psychologist Guillaume Martin. He turns to the final page and translates its concluding line from French to English:

“Three racers attack, will they manage to organise themselves? Will they allow themselves to be caught by the peloton? The issue is uncertain, but we can be sure that the race will be beautiful.”

Often, the key to a successful breakaway is the commitment of its riders to work together. Will one rider sit on another's wheel and refuse to collaborate, or will they alternate leading riders, allowing the group to conserve energy and form a fierce breakaway? How does a team avoid a “tragedy of the commons?”

“It’s like a game of chess.”

Every day, coalitions between riders of different teams happen. Once in the breakaway, they have a common goal - to stay away from the chasing peloton. However, at one point in the race attacks will inevitably be made, the new goal set towards stage wins. It might come 100km to the end if the distance from the peloton is wide enough, or on a climb, or in the final stretch of a sprint depending on opportunity and rider capabilities.

Sometimes coalitions between riders happen between those with the same nationality, sometimes old favours are called into play during stages, or thrown forwards for future call-ins. Sometimes breakaway team-mates earn the rare honour of a double combativity award like the TotalEnergies riders in this year's Tour. Sometimes team loyalties break down during the races - players go rogue.

“The most famous example was in 1985. Greg LeMond was working for Bernard Hinault to win the Tour de France.”

In 1984, the aging champion Bernard Hinault had broken from Renault to set up his own team: La Vie Claire. The following year, Hinault poached his ex-teammate and current World Champion Greg LeMond, to help him secure his fifth Tour de France victory. LeMond, though arguably the more capable rider of that 1985 Tour, worked for Hinault to secure his record breaking win. However, the following year the American extinguished Hunault’s desires for a sixth victory, taking the win for himself - the first of two more to come.

More recently, Sky teammates Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins kick started their feud on Stage 11 of the 2012 Tour. Froome rode clear of his teammate in an move criticised by Wiggins, and which threw doubt on the team’s leadership.

The key to ensuring a team works harmoniously is in the ability to cultivate a shared identity, argues Dr. Reicher.

“Good leadership is about creating a sense of “us”.

The success of the group is the ability of the leader to get people to think in group terms - a victory of the group is a victory for me, so I’m not feeling jealous of them, but affirmed by their victory.”

There is no definitive science to how group cohesion can be consistently secured - there are many ways to do this, none of them completely known. But looking at the peloton today, there is one team most clearly working as a strategic whole, according to Dr. Reicher.

“Visma-Lease a Bike. I think most people recognise that Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is a stronger overall cyclist, but Visma-Lease a Bike [now] have a stronger team - if they attack him, he has to respond to each attack. So the ability of a team like Visma-Lease a Bike is as critical to the tour as the individual legs of Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.

“Cycling is just about the only sport where you can have a conversation like this. It’s very much about the team, and the ability of the team to work together, and the ability of people to sacrifice themselves in false attacks, to throw out the opposition which makes all the difference.

I haven’t got the data. I look from the outside, I read it in Cycling Weekly. I have no more insights than you have. But what is quite clear, and what makes it so fascinating, is that this is a conversation we can have that’s critical to what’s going to happen in this tour. If it was just about the strongest rider, quite frankly it would be a bit dull - we’d most likely know the outcome already. But it is so much more than that. It’s about society, too.

Individuals don’t have a chance to defeat the group if they have no coherence as a team. It’s understanding that team process, and how to nurture it, but also that diplomatic process of being able to form those groups on the road that is central to the sport and part of its magic.”

Nearly 10 years after his retirement, the former Tour de France champion and five-time Olympic gold medallist, Bradley Wiggins, is baring all in his latest autobiography, ‘The Chain’.

The 45-year-old has spent the last six months working on the book, which he has described as "the most honest and personal [one] I've ever written".

"Back in 2012, everyone knew who Bradley Wiggins was," he writes in the blurb of 'The Chain'. "Everyone, that is, but me."

The book marks Wiggins's first autobiography since 2012, the year he won the Tour de France, the Olympic time trial, and major stage races including Paris-Nice, the Tour de Romandie, and the Critérium du Dauphiné.

That year, he was the golden boy, 'Wiggo', the man to beat. But off the bike, "I didn’t really know who I was," Wiggins told Cycling Weekly last June.

In an Instagram post announcing his latest book, Wiggins described it as "the story of me finally making peace with myself".

"It's about what happens when the race is over," he said, "about facing the darkest parts of myself, and finally figuring out and learning to accept who I am and what I am."

"For years, I hid behind the identity, mask, and medals of 'Wiggo'. But inside, I was struggling more than anyone realised."

The years since his retirement in 2016 have been, for Wiggins, an operation in working out who he is when he isn’t racing. He has battled with addiction, faced bankruptcy, and revealed alleged sexual abuse dating back to his early teens. Without the distraction of cycling, and unresolved trauma, Wiggins began to fall into what he has described as “very dangerous” situations.

"I was doing s*** loads of cocaine," he revealed during a press event, attended by Cycling Weekly, last month. "I had a real problem and my kids were actually going to put me in rehab at one point, I’ve never spoken about that. I really was walking a tightrope.”

Now, over twelve months sober, Wiggins is charting his process of self-discovery in a new autobiography as he rebuilds his relationship with the sport that has defined his life.

"I've accepted in the last 12 months that however much I try and push it away, I am a cyclist, it is my life, and it will always be part of my life," Wiggins said.

"I think I was causing myself more pain by trying to push it away. Every time someone sees me they go, 'Oh, you're that cyclist', so it's just never going to leave me, ever."

Wiggins's new book, ‘The Chain’, will be published by Harper Collins on 25 October, and is available to pre-order now.

French kit brand Ekoï has released a collection in collaboration with Sir Bradley Wiggins.

Launched at an event in London last week, the collection pays tribute to the winner of the 2012 Tour de France and decorated Olympian. As well as two different jerseys, one black and one white, the collaboration also includes bib shorts, arm warmers and bidons printed with the logo ‘WGO2.0’.

A written motif which lists Wiggins most notable achievements is also printed on the pocket of the jersey, which comes in simple black or white - there is no overt reference to mod culture here.

After partnering with several professional teams, including Cofidis and Lotto, Ekoï CEO Jean-Christophe Rattel said that he hopes working with Wiggins will enable the brand to break into the UK market. Ekoï also has collaborations with French former mountain biker Julien Absalon and retired Italian cyclist Claudio Chiappucci.

"We’re proud to unveil an exclusive collaboration that blends elite performance with British heritage," Rattel said. "This is more than a product launch, it’s a statement of identity, innovation and style."

Speaking at the launch event, Wiggins himself said that working with Ekoï had helped him recapture his love for cycling.

He said: "Part of this kit and working is my reintroduction to cycling. Two years ago, I never anticipated throwing my leg over a bike ever again. I hated cycling and I’ve come full circle with that now."

Before the product launch, Wiggins revealed that he had battled cocaine addiction post-retirement but was now clean from recreational substances and 12 months sober.

"I had a real problem and my kids were actually going to put me in rehab at one point, I’ve never spoken about that," he said. "I really was walking a tightrope. There were times when my son was worried I was going to end up dead in the morning. I was a functioning addict, there was no middle ground for me, I couldn’t ever have a glass of wine, as if I did, then I was buying drugs."

It is not the first time that the now 45-year-old has collaborated with a major kit brand. In 2015, Rapha produced the first strip for Team Wiggins and worked with the Londoner on further collections. In 2018, Wiggins launched a collection with premium British brand Le Col, which went through multiple iterations; the collaboration also extended to his former cycling team, Wiggins Le Col. The brand and Wiggins worked together for a number of years but that partnership is understood to have ended.

Nearly ten years on from his retirement, Sir Bradley Wiggins is a different man to the figure whose image was everywhere during the golden summer of 2012. The summer he became British cycling’s poster boy after winning the Tour de France and gold at the London Olympics. Instead of the flamboyant, outspoken figure that he once seemed to be, he now appears gentle, reflective and astonishingly open after revealing that he has spent many years living with deep personal trauma which he is still dealing with.

Among those supporting him through troubled times is Lance Armstrong, who is funding rehab for the former cyclist.

During a press event, organised by the French kit brand Ekoï, at a west London hotel last week, Wiggins explained that the still unresolved 'jiffy-gate' scandal only added to his inner anguish after calling time on his career and still affects him.

The controversy came about after an investigation into whether a package allegedly received by former Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman for Wiggins at the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2011 contained a legal decongestant, or a banned drug.

The subsequent 14-month inquiry brought few answers but left questions for all involved; including the team's then principal, Sir Dave Brailsford, who Wiggins has not heard from since he retired.

"I would love to know one way or another what actually happened," he said. "The whole story was that it was delivered to me [personally]. I was on the podium at the end of the Dauphiné, and it was made to sound like I got delivered a package."

"'Can you sign for this!'" Wiggins jokes. "But of course it was never really like that. The amount of times I then got asked 'what was in the package?' But I had absolutely no idea. F*ck knows."

A British Department for Culture Media and Sport investigation into the ethics of Team Sky's working practices followed, but the contents of the package remain unclear. Sir Dave Brailsford stated the package contained the decongestant Fluimucil which is not a banned substance. But the lack of paperwork to support this cast doubt over the claim and the team's use of Theraputic Use Exemption (TUE) forms had cast further doubt over their ethical approach to medication.

Wiggins feels that the lack of clarity from those who he says should have had the answers to the situation caused unimaginable stress for his family - including his wife at the time, Cath - and said that he felt let down by those closest to him at that point. Wiggins explained that the cut throat environment at Sky meant that those in power didn’t take accountability for their part in the debacle.

In 2023, Freeman received a four-year ban for his role in ordering banned testosterone patches that were delivered to his office at British Cycling's Manchester HQ in 2011.

Wiggins has recently finished writing a third autobiography, The Chain, which he says will cover the topic in more detail and the impact it had on him personally. "After cycling, when all that was over, it looks at what I was really going through and what I was facing."

Post-retirement, Wiggins revealed in 2022 that he had been groomed and allegedly sexually abused by his coach when he was just 13-years-old. Now, he said that dealing with the inner torment caused by the abuse throughout his career and into retirement meant that he put himself in some "very dangerous" situations, admitting that his children feared it would cost him his life after he became addicted to cocaine.

He is now 12 months sober and attends regular therapy sessions, and revealed in December that he had received an offer from Lance Armstrong to pay for his treatment in the United States, a proposal he has now accepted.

"I was doing shit loads of cocaine," he said. "I had a real problem and my kids were actually going to put me in rehab at one point, I’ve never spoken about that. I really was walking a tightrope. There were times when my son was worried I was going to end up dead in the morning. I was a functioning addict, there was no middle ground for me, I couldn’t ever have a glass of wine, as if I did, then I was buying drugs.

"My addiction was a way of easing that pain that I lived with… I'm still figuring a lot of this out but what I have got is a lot more control of myself and my triggers, I'm a lot more at peace with myself now which is a really big thing… They [Armstrong and entourage] were quite worried about me for a long time, they’d been through a similar thing with Jan [Ullrich] as well."

Recapturing a love for cycling

In an interview with Cycling Weekly last June, Wiggins said that he felt there should be a better welfare system in place for those leaving the sport. When asked about the support mechanisms in place for ex-riders again, he suggested that more could potentially be done but that it is "hard to say" what exactly that should be, explaining that he is in contact with British Cycling CEO Jon Dutton, who recently reached out to him to offer further support.

"My whole life really was there [British Cycling]," he explained. "You're under lock and key and you're not advised to go anywhere else if you've got an issue with something because of strict liability. Everything was always done for you, we had Steve Peters there too, nobody ever said anything like 'look, forget Steve Peters, forget getting a performance out of you through psychology and all of that, you're probably going to need some help' but I don’t know if that was someone else's responsibility or ours."

Moving forwards, despite admitting that he had previously felt that cycling had "taken everything away" from him, Wiggins said that he now feels there is a light at the end of the tunnel. He has learned to recapture his passion for the sport again, both personally and professionally, and recently collaborated on a new collection with Ekoï. His son, Ben, rides for elite development team Hagens Berman Jayco, and his father supports his career choice.

"I've accepted in the last 12 months that however much I try and push it away, I am a cyclist, it is my life and it will always be part of my life," Wiggins said. "I think I was causing myself more pain by trying to push it away. Every time someone sees me they go, 'oh, you're that cyclist' so it's just never going to leave me, ever."

"I hadn’t had a bike for several years and then I got a bike again and I just forgot how much I love being out on it," Wiggins continued. "Whenever I get on my bike, it reminds me of being 13 years old and how unhappy I was at 13, but my escapism was being on my bike. It's sort of given me that same feeling again now. I've always viewed it from the negative side with what came with my career, and what happened at the end of my career, whereas now I'm seeing it for what it is… Ultimately it's where I get the most pleasure, it's my sanctuary."

Sir Bradley Wiggins has revealed that Lance Armstrong offered to pay for his therapy, an offer which he refused initially, but is now reconsidering.

The 2012 Tour de France winner, and five-time Olympic champion, has had a public battle with his mental health in recent years, but told The High Performance Podcast that he was in the "best place" he had been for his whole life currently.

Wiggins appeared on Armstrong's podcast The Forward during the Tour de France and earlier this year, and expanded on the pair's connection and friendship in the recent interview.

"Lance has helped me a lot in recent years, especially this year," Wiggins explained. "Talking about therapy, he wants to pay for me to go to this big place in Atalanta where you stay for a week, they take your phone off you. Lance was going to fund that for me. He’s a good man.

"That’s not to condone what he did, we all know that, but it’s a bit disproportionate to what some people get away with…. He’s got a heart under there. He’s also got an ego the size of a house. It’s why he won seven Tours, well he didn’t."

Armstrong was stripped of the seven Tours de France he won between 1999 and 2005 for doping offences.

"'I don’t need help, but thanks for the offer'," was Wiggins' original response to Armstrong's offer, he added. However, the 44-year-old said that he was changing his mind: "That was six months ago, but I’m considering speaking to him now. I wanted to get back to a semblance of order, without talking to someone… Now I know what I want to talk to them [a therapist] about. I didn’t just want to go in there and say ‘sort me out’."

"I’m in the best place I’ve been for 44 years of my life," he explained. "That’s largely down to the fact I’ve been to the other side of the world, I’ve been in dark places at times, for various reasons. I’ve experienced extreme highs with my success, and other aspects of my life, but I’ve also experienced, like most of us, the other end of the spectrum... I [have] finally taken responsibility for my own life. I’m not in a position where I’m playing the blame game.

"There were some extreme moments, the last one was about a year ago without going into too much detail, but I was in a very dark place, a very dark room, for many days," he continued. "It was a hotel. My son, actually, was the one who intervened and really made me realise the self destructive mode I was in, the damage I was doing to myself.

"I think where I’m at now… there always seemed to be something that was causing me issues. I’ve realised now that there’s never going to be a clear path. I was one of those people who wallowed in self-pity. I was one of those people who would drink etc and I’d be late for something and it would affect my behaviour."

Wiggins also spoke about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child.

"The biggest thing that has impacted me, the most amount of pain, was the fact I was sexually abused for three years by my first coach between the ages of 13 and 16," he said. "When I started to accept that - I’d ignored it for 30 years - when I retired, I really resented cycling. I said a lot of times that I hated cycling. That was a real process for me.

"The interview I did with The Times meant four people came forward who were in the club at the same time, and that was a weight off my shoulders. There was an insinuation that I was lying about it, and that killed me."

The alleged abuser was named as Stan Knight of the Archer Road club in West London by The Times.

On his financial difficulties, which saw him declared bankrupt early this year, Wiggins said he was "fleeced left, right and centre".

"Money has never defined me or been my main priority," he said. "I wish it had been at times. There were a lot of changes in tax laws and things, and I had professionals who were bending the books and stuff while I was still cycling. Up to 2012, they were exploiting my image and name…

"You get 10 years down the line and you realise you were a pawn in everyone’s game. There was a lot of professional negligence. It has been a learning curve."

Claims faced by Sir Bradley Wiggins’s estate have doubled to almost £2 million in his ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

The 2012 Tour de France winner’s company, Wiggins Rights Limited, entered voluntary liquidation in 2020, with the former cyclist declared bankrupt earlier this year. At the time, Wiggins’s liquidators, MHA, claimed that his company owed £979,953.53 to creditors.

This figure has since increased to £1,976,157.73, in a “revised uplifted claim” by the liquidation firm.

Georgina Eason, insolvency practitioner at MHA, wrote: “During the prior reporting period, I received response from third parties regarding access to the Company’s Books and Records and have conducted interviews of key personnel. As a result of these investigations, I have been able to substantiate the increased claim within the Director’s [Wiggins’s] bankruptcy proceedings (increased to the sum of £1,976,157.73).”

This is the second time the claim against the former Olympian has been increased, after it rose from £650,000 to £979.953.53 between 2020 and 2022. Eason added that she “does not presently anticipate” any further investigations.

Wiggins was declared bankrupt in June this year.

When asked about the increased claim, Wiggins’s barrister Alan Sellers, director at law firm Bond Turner, said on Wednesday: “Following his bankruptcy this year, Bradley is rebuilding his life, generally and financially.

“Ultimately, the debt from Wiggins Rights will be part of the bankruptcy which is being conducted by the trustee, and any assets or otherwise will be offset against any debt. Ultimately, it will be up to the trustee to decide what is owed and what isn't owed.”

The increased claim is unlikely to make much difference to Wiggins’s personal financial circumstances now, as having been declared bankrupt, it will likely be settled out of his estate.

Wiggins has previously said he was the victim of mismanagement and bad advice throughout his career. Speaking on Lance Armstrong’s The Forward podcast in August, Wiggins said: "One of the things I regret is I never paid attention to my financial affairs when I was racing.

"Which is one of the things that happens to athletes. You make a lot of money and if you haven't got your eyes on it, people take advantage."

He has previously said he was seeking to pursue money he feels he is owed through the courts.

This week, his barrister Sellers said: “Historically, we've been instructed, as Bond Turner, to pursue various individuals and companies for negligent advice. Since the bankruptcy, those proceedings have essentially come to a stop because once you declare bankrupt, you need the permission of the the trustee in bankruptcy, to continue with any proposed or actual proceedings

“As of today’s date I don’t have that permission, but I'm reasonably confident that we will get permission in due course.”

Among the 15 creditors to Wiggins Rights, the British tax office HMRC has submitted a claim for £313,447.48.

Wiggins entered an Individual Voluntary Agreement (IVA), a financial agreement designed to help people pay off creditors and avoid bankruptcy, in 2020, which included him putting one of his properties, worth over £600,000, up for sale. The IVA was terminated this year, and bankruptcy declared.

When asked for comment by Cycling Weekly last November, Wiggins said his financial woes had “gone on for a few years now with no apparent end in sight”.

The 44-year-old has previously disputed the liquidators’ financial claims.

Wiggins Rights Limited was established as a company to run the former cyclist’s affairs during his career, and holds the registered trademarks to the names ‘Bradley Wiggins’, ‘Wiggins’, and ‘Wiggo’. According to the latest update from liquidators MHA, an “interested party” has been identified in the sale of these trademarks, but “no documentation has been exchanged”.

Wiggins and MHA were both contacted for comment in relation to this story.

Sir Mark Cavendish and Sir Bradley Wiggins are set to reunite on the bike at a charity event to raise money for those impacted by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, USA.

The pair, who last competed together at the Ghent Six Day in 2016, are two of the guests of honour at the 13th Gran Fondo Hincapie Greenville, the sportive founded by former professional cyclist George Hincapie. Cavendish and Wiggins will be joined by 1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich too.

This year's Gran Fondo, held on Saturday 19 October, is a special event due to the impact of Hurricane Helene, a "worst-case scenario" weather event, which caused devastation in the USA, in North Carolina in particular. At least 213 people died across six states as a result of the storm, which caused flooding, strong winds and storm surges.

A portion of the revenue from the weekend will be donated to the Polk County Community Foundation, set up to help one particularly hard-hit part of North Carolina.

Because of the natural disaster, the route has been modified to a 19-mile course entirely within Greenville County, in order to stay in South Carolina, and not impact emergency services.

"We initially thought that we were going to cancel the event," Rich Hincapie, president of Hincapie Events, said in a press release. "But then I realised that we could use the Gran Fondo to draw attention to the massive devastation in our area and turn the entire thing into a huge fundraising effort.

"While we understand that many counties are in need, we want to focus on our neighbours in Polk County who have partnered with us and supported our Gran Fondo event for thirteen years. We want to rally the global cycling community and really make a difference in Polk County. Our goal is to raise one million dollars."

"Our friends in North Carolina have supported this event for over a decade," he continued. "Now, it is our turn to give back to them and help them rebuild their community.

"The proceeds collected will be donated directly to Polk County Community Foundation in North Carolina. We selected Polk County as this is the home of Saluda, Tryon, and Columbus, all of which have gladly hosted rest stops, partnered with our event, and cheered us on during our Gran Fondo Hincapie Greenville rides."

As well as the Gran Fondo, there will be a Celebrity Chef Dinner, attended by Cavendish, Wiggins, and Ullrich, and the After Party post-ride. At this, an artist will paint a picture of Cavendish live, which will then be auctioned off to help fundraising efforts.

Last month, Wiggins returned to the bike for the first time in "nearly three years" as part of a 50-mile meet and greet ride, ahead of which he said he was "a little bit nervous".

"I'm in a really good place now," he said pre-ride. "It's been nice to remember just how many friends I've got in this sport."

Cavendish, meanwhile, is set to retire at the end of the season, after riding the Tour de France Singapore Criterium. He was knighted last week.

Online registration is still open for Gran Fondo Hincapie Greenville until 18 October, and will be available on-site on the Friday and Saturday of the event.

Sir Bradley Wiggins has said he is feeling "a little bit nervous" as he prepares to start cycling again. 

The former Tour de France champion is taking part in a 50-mile meet and greet ride in Staffordshire on 29 September. In a promo video for the event, Wiggins, who retired almost eight years ago, said it will be the first time he has ridden a bike in "nearly three years".  

"I'm getting back on my bicycle again," he said. "There are going to be some other stars there. I know Russell Downing is riding. So it'll be good. 

"[It will be] the first time in nearly three years for me getting back on a bike, and I'm looking forward to it. [I'm] a little bit nervous whether I'll get round the whole thing. I think I will, I'm in pretty good shape at the moment. I'm looking forward to it. I hope to see as many of you there as possible."

Wiggins is one of Great Britain's most decorated cyclists of all time; he has won five Olympic gold medals, a world time trial title, and was the first Brit in history to win the Tour de France. 

In early 2022, Wiggins joined a filmed bike ride with former pro Matt Stephens, retracing the route of his London 2012 Olympic time trial victory.

He later explained, however, that he had stopped riding, "because I don't like the person I became when I was on it".  

"I was the most confident bike rider when I was on it," the 44-year-old told the BBC in a documentary released last December. "But step off the bike and I had to step back as Bradley Wiggins, because the bike was where I was most comfortable and gave me all my confidence in my life.

"I can't imagine achieving anything like that now in a sports perspective because I'm not the same person I was. I've grown now. I have all the answers."

In recent years, Wiggins has spoken candidly about the abuse he faced as a child, revealing he suffered "borderline rape" by a former coach. He has also spoken about the trauma of growing up with a largely absent father. 

"A lot of my cycling career was about running away from my past. It was a distraction," he said previously. 

Tickets are on sale at £50 to join Wiggins next weekend on the 50-mile ride, organised by Pau cycling shop. The 2012 Tour winner will also hold a meet and greet afterwards in the brand's store in Stoke-on-Trent.

Sir Bradley Wiggins has admitted that he should have "paid more attention" to his financial affairs while he was a professional rider, as he spoke about his troubles on the record for the first time.

Speaking on WEDŪ's The Forward w/Lance Armstrong podcast last week, the former Tour de France winner and multiple Olympic medal winner said: "One of the things I regret is I never paid attention to my financial affairs when I was racing.

"Which is one of the things that happens to athletes you know, you make a lot of money and if you haven't got your eyes on it, people take advantage."

Wiggins, who retired in 2016 after a career which saw him win eight Olympic medals, was declared bankrupt earlier this year. He entered an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), a financial agreement designed to help people pay off creditors and avoid bankruptcy, in 2022. Cycling Weekly revealed in 2022 that his liquidated company owed nearly £1 million to creditors. He is understood to have failed his IVA in January this year.

Wiggins Rights Limited, the company that ran much of Bradley Wiggins’s affairs during his career and which was the parent of the now defunct Team Wiggins, entered liquidation in September 2020. In November last year, liquidators revealed they had yet to be paid any of the £979,953 they claimed from Wiggins in 2022 in part to pay off an outstanding director's loan. Wiggins has previously said he disputes the claim.

"I realise now the importance… I should have paid more attention to it," he told Lance Armstrong's podcast. "Because you get to the point then where I'm in this situation now but because of the mess that's been created, and because it's been rumbling on for quite a few years now this hasn't just happened overnight."

In June, Wiggins told Cycling Weekly that cycling was "great distraction for everything else in my life that normal people would get time to get over"

Detailing the events that led to his bankruptcy, Wiggins explained:  "I had three companies – my image rights company that handles all my image rights, endorsement deals.

"So connected to that I joined XIX Entertainment, Simon Fuller, in 2014. And they set up various joint ventures with various clubs and companies, drinks suppliers, all different things, whatever endorsements.

"Off the bottom of that, the third company was a cycling team called New Cycling Limited, which was Team Wiggins, which was a team that was set up to facilitate the national track program, which was team pursuit, my last cycling career goal in Rio. That team should never have made a loss, it should never have made a profit, it was purely to pay the riders of the team, their wages and handle the budget.

"Now that that was done, as we see now through the lawyers, that was done purposefully. So the top company would always take the hit if there was any trouble with the other ones. 

"They should have been separate companies."

"There was a lot of money coming down from the top company to prop up these ventures that weren't making any money," he continued.

"The top company took the biggest hits when it ran up a debt of nearly one and a half million, which got given to me as a director's loan. But I wasn't the director at the time and I had to be made a director to take the loan without my knowledge. I was still riding my bike at the time. So it's a complete mess and I wasn't aware of this mess until I was deep into retirement."

Wiggins also said that he lost a lot of money after losing an employment case which saw him classified as an employee of Team Sky, rather than self-employed.

"When I left [Team] Sky, because I was a British resident, I never lived abroad – the tax laws changed,” he explained.

"And when I started with Team Sky, as most cyclists, I was self-employed with an image rights company. Towards the end of my tenure with Team Sky, they were involved in a two-year case with HMRC for everyone who worked at Sky to fight whether they were deemed employed by Sky.

"I was acting as a witness for Sky in that case against HMRC and spent an enormous amount of money on legal fees because ... if I was deemed employed, I'd have had to back pay taxes and National Insurance etc."

"In the end, I was deemed employed so I had to go back five years and pay all the taxes and every bits and bobs and pieces," he continued.

The 44-year-old said that the full details of his financial situation would emerge: "This will all come out in the wash over due process in the next few years. It's just going to be a hell of a headache to get right."

Despite reports in the tabloid press that Wiggins had been practically homeless, the former Hour Record holder dismissed this as "senationalism".

He said that the press had engaged in "harassment of every member of my family and trying to dig up dirt and stories and things like this just to add weight to the fact that they think you're done and dusted".

Wiggins said that the media knew about his financial situation before it was official: "They were aware of it before it even went on the insolvency register, which shows that there must have been someone inside that leaked it to the press."

However, despite the troubles he has faced, Wiggins said that he thought everything would sort itself out: "It will be alright. But that's the first time I've commented on it since that happened."

Warning: this article contains references to suicide, emotional and sexual abuse. 

Sir Bradley Wiggins has further opened up regarding his childhood and subsequent battles with mental health issues during the highs of his professional career and retirement, stating "I was putting myself in some situations where someone would have found me dead in the morning".

The highly decorated former Tour de France winner and four-time Olympic gold medallist - who was declared bankrupt in June - has very publicly spoken out about the issues he has faced, particularly in recent years. 

In 2022, Wiggins told Mens Health that he was groomed as a 13-year-old by a former coach. Last year, he said he suffered 'borderline rape and sexual abuse' during a three-year period. 

The alleged abuser was later named as Stan Knight of the Archer Road club in West London by The Times. 

Speaking on the recently published Under the Surface podcast, Wiggins alleged Knight abused him in the shower at a hostel in Dorset. 

"Had I not come out about that and had I not done that interview, maybe I wouldn’t be here today," he said. "I wasn’t suicidal, I wouldn’t have killed myself, but I think I was putting myself in some situations where someone would have found me dead in the morning."

"It wouldn’t have been purposefully, I wouldn’t have done it on purpose. But I think I was walking a tightrope at times," he added.  

He also revealed that four other alleged victims of Knight had approached him since he opened up. 

Wiggins has previously said that he used cycling as a means of distraction from his upbringing, his largely absent father - Gary Wiggins, an Australian former cyclist who died in 2008 - and the alleged sexual abuse.

"It was a great distraction for everything else in my life that normal people would get time to get over," he told Cycling Weekly in an exclusive interview in June.

Wiggins told Under the Surface that growing up he was used "as a weird pawn" by his mother after his father left the family.

He said: "'You’ll be good at it because your Dad was good at it', that line I realise has affected me the most in my adulthood, because that's where all my self-worth issues came from because me the human, there was nothing about me, it was because your Dad was good at this, and you're going to be a good cyclist because of that, that was a constant narrative.

"She wanted to show him, 'you've left him, so I’m going to make your boy better than you ever was [sic]'. I was just bred to be this monster on the bike and it worked. I just thought she was doing her best for me. I can’t ever have a conversation with her about this, she refuses to."

Wiggins went on to say that his mother stopped all communication with him after his retirement in 2016. 

He said: "I never felt loved, that’s an important thing in childhood…There was a lack of affection, lack of emotional guardedness within the family for one reason or another. I never got told I was loved by my mum, ever. People would say it doesn’t mean she didn’t love you, but I’m just saying how I felt. I could have done with a hug at times, I was never hugged."

Wiggins later made contact with his father, before a planned meeting with him at Ghent Six left him "broken". 

"Jealousy crept in and he didn’t like it," Wiggins explained. "He pulled me to one side, he was drunk, and he said 'just remember one thing, Brad, you’re never going to be as good as your old man was' and it broke my heart, it f**king broke me that. I still remember it to this day, he squeezed my arm and I realise now how much that impacted me."

Revealing more about his difficult relationship with both parents, he said that his "nationality was lied about" before going on to speak in more detail about his issues with self-esteem which were amplified around the time of his Tour de France and Olympic success in 2012. 

"When I won sports personality of the year, I pulled out with two weeks to go," he explained. "I just said I don’t want to do this. But they said to me 'you’ve got to, it’s going to look terrible for you'. So I put my best suit on, a fancy suit, had a silly barnet and got drunk before I went up. Sue Barker was going to interview me, so I messed around and tried to deflect from the severity of the interview. I just thought I don’t know what to do or say here."

"When she says 'what a performance, Bradley' I realised that because of my self-worth I’d just be funny and call her Susan, try and make a joke and deflect from everything… I realise now that it all stems from no one ever telling me that I was enough just as me. Forget cycling, forget all that, you’re just enough as a person. I tell my son that every day, forget cycling, you’re just enough."

He later graphically recounted the alleged abuse he suffered at the hands of Knight, revealing that he believes he was drugged along with another victim. Wiggins explained that Knight would take both him and another boy to a hostel in Dorset.

"It was insidious," Wiggins said as he recalled the sickening incidents. "Up to count I had 36 incidents... He would have us two in the showers showing us how to clean our scrotum, because that's quite an important area when you're riding a bike, because it can get infected with saddle sores.

"So on the basis that 'this is what you need to do as a professional bike rider, you need to look up', but he would hold our scrotums and show us the particular scrubbing method."

"There were lot of incidents like that," he added. "Waking up naked and not going to bed with pyjamas, waking up naked but not remembering waking up in the night and taking them off.

"It's very very very f****d up."

Wiggins concluded by discussing the healing process he has undergone since first publicly discussing the alleged sexual abuse he suffered. He explained that an important part had been discovering that it was not just him who had been targeted by the coach, at the time. 

"Four other people came forward," he said. "Four other people came forward and said 'it also happened to me with this coach', I thought I was the only one…"I'll never be healed from it, but the biggest part of my healing process has been that if I'd never have talked about it, I’d never have met the other victims and that’s been one of the best things I've ever done in my life."

Wiggins says that ultimately the alleged abuse is the biggest issue to blame for his issues in later life. 

"It's the thing that's held me back the most," he concluded. "It's where all my self-worth issues came from, I wished my dad had been around to kill this gentleman. I wished that I’d never started cycling, because if I’d never been taken down that day, to start cycling because I was 'Wiggo’s boy', I would never have met this guy and it would never have happened."

The NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331

Sir Bradley Wiggins will be a special guest on Lance Armstrong's podcast, The Move, for the next week, it was revealed on Sunday.

Wiggins, the winner of the 2012 Tour de France, suggested to Cycling Weekly last month that he had a job lined up for the French Grand Tour, and has now appeared in his first podcast alongside Armstrong, discussing stage nine of the race.

Armstrong won seven Tours de France between 1999 and 2005, only to later have his yellow jerseys removed and his results scrubbed after a lengthy doping investigation and an admission that he took performance-enhancing drugs.

The Move, recorded in Aspen, Colorado, sees the American talk about the current world of professional cycling, joined by former teammate George Hincapie, and JB Hager. The website describes it as "an incisive perspective on the Tour de France and cycling, triathlon and endurance sports with special guest appearances, course previews and race analysis inside these worlds of suffering and splendor like no one else".

Wiggins is far from the only former or current rider to take part in the programme, with Mark Cavendish and Matteo Jorgenson among the active sportsmen to call into the show during this Tour.

Wiggins arrived in the USA to take part in the podcast on Saturday - after apparently dealing with some visa issues - and will be staying there during his guest appearances on the show. Hincapie described him as a "very nice guy, very funny".

"My son did all the logistics for me, Ben..." Wiggins explained. "He's been fathering me a lot recently."

Wiggins' appearance on the podcast follows widely reported financial issues. He has also spoken before of struggling with his mental health since leaving professional cycling.

In early June, The Times reported that Wiggins had been declared bankrupt, after going through financial difficulties with his company. When asked for comment in November last year, Wiggins told Cycling Weekly his financial difficulties were “a very historical matter that involves professional negligence from [others] that has left a s***pile with my name at the front of it to deal with.”

"I've experienced both sides of the coin," Wiggins said on the podcast. "When you retire, you don't know what to do with yourself... Since I was 13, all I had been was a cyclist. I went through this transition period, and your mental health is a lot better when you're working out every day. It was about working out a new equilibrium. I have to find a healthy balance, where you can train, but it doesn't have to be for something."

The five-time Olympic gold medal winner also revealed that he has taken up a new sport in the last year. He previously attempted to get into rowing in order to fill the space that was left by cycling.

"I took up boxing a year ago, in an attempt to learn something new, also to face my fears a bit," Wiggins said. "I'm quite anti-confrontational. I guess that's one of the fears, actually getting in the ring and fighting someone."

“It was a great distraction for everything else in my life that normal people would get time to get over,” says Sir Bradley Wiggins of his professional cycling career. Almost eight years after his retirement, Wiggins is still trying to redefine his relationship with the sport and is working through personal issues and trauma that span back even farther.

“I’ve always been around cycling and as much as I’ve tried to push it away in the past, I realised that it’s always going to be there,” he says. Indeed, Wiggins has had a tumultuous time finding his space within the cycling - and larger - world since his retirement in 2016. There have been angry rants about how much he hates cycling, but then on the flipside he has also indulged in nostalgic trips down memory lane on stage as he tours around the country speaking.

We’re chatting over a coffee at the National Cycling Show at Birmingham’s NEC on Sunday after an initial interview, as part of an intimate group of journalists, was cancelled the previous day. No one can blame the former Team GB star for not wanting to speak to the media - as we chat, numerous papers have splashed details of his financial woes, circling to pick apart the details of his bankruptcy that his lawyer recently told the Daily Mail had left the ex-pro “sofa-surfing” and without “a penny”. 

While many of the articles praised his glittering career and professional achievements, they all asked the question of how has this become the situation for a man considered one of Britain's greatest ever cyclists.

In early June, The Times reported that Wiggins had been declared bankrupt, after going through financial difficulties with his company. When asked for comment in November last year, Wiggins told Cycling Weekly his financial difficulties were “a very historical matter that involves professional negligence from [others] that has left a s***pile with my name at the front of it to deal with.”

He added: “[It] happens to a lot of sportsmen while they’re doing the grafting and on that there’ll be a number of legal claims from my lawyers left, right and centre as a result.”

The bankruptcy, financial difficulties and the fresh comments published from his lawyer on the situation are off the cards during our conversation, but Wiggins, known for being a complex character, quickly delves deep into other personal issues, giving an insight as to where his head is at on this sunny day in Birmingham, even as all the noise surrounding his monetary affairs stirs online.

“You fall in and out of love with things, or you have enough of it, or at times it becomes an obsession like it did for me,” he says of cycling. After a period of time where he wouldn't even watch any racing, he says that he's now found “a happy balance”. Wiggins will be back at this year’s Tour de France in some capacity, although right now he says he can’t share specific details due to an embargo.

“I think the riding part for me was always going to be difficult,” he shares, describing how he maintained an element of fitness on the bike when he retired, but that, understandably, it “slowly drifted away”. A ride up the Sa Calobra a couple of years ago - a climb he held the unofficial record for, setting a time of around 22:30 during the winter before his Tour de France victory - was an experience that “demoralised” him. That time, it took him about an hour and a half to get up the climb.

“I realised that I couldn’t enjoy staying with the group and riding up, knowing where [it] would [have been] very easy for me in the past,” he says. “But now, I feel like getting back on the bike and finding my own level again now. Enough time has passed [that] I could find a happy balance.”

“But there’s always the pressure for me to do it: ‘why don’t you ride your bike?’ And when I go out, there’s [always] someone there who’s like ‘I can’t believe I’m beating Sir Bradley Wiggins up a climb’, but I’m not the same cyclist.”

He thinks there should be more of a welfare system in place for those leaving or retiring from the sport: “but how that’s set up and funded, I don’t know.” Is there nothing in place at all when you retire, I ask? “You stop and no-one ever contacts you again,” he says plainly.

The first ever British winner of the Tour de France and five-time Olympic gold medalist, Wiggins believes it was always his “destiny” to become a cyclist, following in the footsteps of his father, the Australian professional cyclist Gary Wiggins. 

He describes being “forever told” about his father, a man who he had a difficult relationship with and who left him and his mother when he was two years-old. “We are a product of our childhood and upbringing and I think that never leaves you,” Wiggins states with characteristic frankness.

On the topic of using cycling as a distraction, Wiggins reflects on how in the past he would tighten his focus on the bike whenever “anything big” would happen in his life. Now that he’s retired, there’s been a lot to unpack mentally and emotionally. He describes not being able to properly process the grief of missing his father's funeral in 2008, because he had the World Championships three weeks later. He’s been left with “a lot of unanswered questions” due to his father's absence in his life, he says, but it has also given him clarity when it comes to his own role as a parent.

“I realised how much that’s affected me in my adulthood, but I’ve become the opposite to my own kids. I’ve become everything that I wanted my parents to be,” he shares.

In a chat earlier, with former British national road champion turned pundit Matt Stephens on the main stage at the National Cycling Show, Wiggins spoke about how being a good parent is what gives him the most fulfilment in life, after candidly telling the assembled crowd that in the past there were “times when I wasn’t fit to be a parent”. 

Speaking specifically about his son, the professional cyclist and junior world champion Ben Wiggins, the 44-year-old tellingly said: “I don’t get involved in his cycling. I’m just his dad and I think that’s an important thing to say. I just want to be his dad.”

Wiggins says that although he mentors his son, as a parent would, he knew it would have been “very unhealthy” to get into a working relationship with him. Wiggins also touches upon how watching his son getting into cycling as a teenager “dragged up a lot of things” for him. 

In an interview for Men’s Health in 2022, Wiggins opened up about grooming and sexual abuse he alleged he suffered when he was 13 by his coach at the time. “It was like looking in a mirror, watching him go through the same steps in the same pathway that I did,” he says.

Speaking out about the trauma, his battle with depression and his tough upbringing has inspired fans and members of the public to reach out to him, and Wiggins is seemingly struck by how many people have shared their experiences with him. 

“I’m only starting to realise that maybe there’s a new realm for me and a new sort of ‘inspiration’ I guess, if that’s the right word without being too egotistical,” he says. “People have said ‘I think your best years are ahead of you’ [and] that’s a nice perspective.”

Wiggins says he’s been learning of a new way to engage with people. “I got stuck in my own little world,” he says, describing how people sharing their stories has also helped him. 

Earlier, he told Stephens: “I’m more happy in my skin than I’ve ever been.” In the past, instead of sitting opposite him on a stage, Wiggins said he would “just disappear and go [in] to isolation”.

As we talk, Wiggins glances over at a glossy poster of himself in an aero tuck during the peak of his professional cycling days. “I had this extreme confidence on the bike, but off it - when I look back - I was quite contentious at times. I was quite sweary and I could be hot and cold some days. And particularly the veil I adopted when I was this rock and roll star in 2012, the drinking and stuff… it was a way of hiding in public to disguise and distract from who I really was,” he explains. 

“I was never comfortable enough to just sit and have a normal conversation with someone. I’d have to play a character because I didn’t really know who I was …” He pauses and apologises for going so in-depth, before adding that these are all things he’s learned over the last few years.

“I’m still uncomfortable being the centre of attention. A little bit of that will never leave me,” says Wiggins, but he’s making inroads on what his future could look like. 

Right now, he’s working with sports nutrition brand, Applied Nutrition, on their new product development and attending events as a speaker (which he’s described as “cathartic”), volunteering and working with young offenders, although he says he can’t share further details on the latter due to safeguarding issues.

Whichever road he goes down, cycling, will always play a part in his future endeavours. How could it not with a legacy like his? As Wiggins put it to Stephens, when he was asked where he was right now with cycling: “It’s just part of the fabric of who I am and I don’t want to label it as love or not love. I’m slowly edging my way back in… It’s something I’ve embraced again but not fallen in love with… I’m still keeping it at arm’s length.”

Sir Bradley Wiggins has entered bankruptcy, according to a report in The Times on Saturday, after going through financial difficulties with his company.

The former Tour de France champion, who retired in 2016 after a career which saw him win eight Olympic medals, entered an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), a financial agreement designed to help people pay off creditors and avoid bankruptcy, in 2022. Cycling Weekly revealed in 2022 that his liquidated company owed nearly £1 million to creditors. He is understood to have failed his IVA in January this year.

Wiggins Rights Limited, the company that ran much of Bradley Wiggins’s affairs during his career and which was the parent of the now defunct Team Wiggins, entered liquidation in September 2020. In November last year, liquidators revealed they have yet to be paid any of the £979,953 they claimed from Wiggins in 2022 in part to pay off an outstanding director's loan. Wiggins has previously said he disputes the claim.

In December 2020, not long after his companies entered liquidation, a spokesperson said that Wiggins’s involvement in the companies was "not day to day," and that "this in no way affects Bradley's personal solvency."

According to The Times, Wiggins was declared bankrupt at Lancaster County Court on June 3. Trustees will now be appointed to seize and dispose of Wiggins' remaining assets. 

In the liquidators' report dated 19 September 2023, they said: "Unfortunately the joint supervisor has informed creditors… if the breach is not remedied then the IVA may be terminated. In the event the IVA is terminated the director may become subject to bankruptcy proceedings and this would potentially substantially increase the expected timeframe for recovery of the outstanding directors loan account."

They added: "I expect that the termination of the IVA should be confirmed within the next few months."

When asked for comment in November last year, Wiggins told Cycling Weekly his financial woes had "gone on for a few years now with no apparent end in sight".

He added: "It’s a very historical matter that involves professional negligence from  [others] that has left a s**t pile with my name at the front of it to deal with!

"[It] happens to a lot of sportsmen while they’re doing the grafting and on that there'll be a number of legal claims from my lawyers left right and center as a result."

He added that his legal representatives had experienced "a fair amount of difficulty" in accessing documents.

Wiggins was contacted for comment.

Now Ineos Grenadiers have officially announced their new kit for 2024, a largely orange affair from Gobik, we thought it was time to have a look back at the team's kits from its 15 years of existence.

We already knew what the jersey would look like, really, thanks to Egan Bernal accidentally leaking the kit on Instagram last week, but now we can acknowledge it in all its orange, red and navy blue/black glory.

It's not the first time that a colour other than black or blue has appeared on the jersey - last year was mostly red - but this kit is the first to be properly orange, much like the team's training one.

As for the new supplier, which took over from Bioracer, Gobik first appeared in 2010 when a cycling club in Spain’s Murcia region needed a new kit for racing and the brand started from there, so it has been a swift decade of acceleration from then.

In a press release announcing the new deal, Ineos confirmed that the team had agreed a long-term partnership with the brand which will see them take over from Bioracer as kit supplier to the likes of Geraint Thomas, Egan Bernal and Tom Pidcock. 

Ineos Grenadiers - and Team Sky - have had a whole host of iconic kit suppliers over the years, from Adidas to Gobik, via Rapha and Castelli. Here's a run down of all the eras.

Adidas

The British team first started out with German sports powerhouse Adidas as its kit supplier when it first hit the road in 2010. Bradley Wiggins and company lined up in a now iconic black and light blue kit at the team's launch in London and set the blueprint team's visual identity for almost a decade. 

With the famous three stripes logo taking centre stage on the sleeves, the team’s first jersey featured a large blue panel through the middle with the Sky logo in white print with a blue collar and a thin blue strip running down the middle on the back. 

The jersey and team’s colours largely stayed the same for a while although the blue panel on the jersey was briefly swapped out for a ‘rainforest green’ version in the 2011 Tour of Britain which coincided with an environmental campaign being run by its main sponsor. The kit proved to be a hit and so it was worn in the 2011 Tour de France due to its success.

Adidas’ crowning moment as the team’s kit supplier was undoubtedly Bradley Wiggins' 2012 Tour victory. The jersey Wiggins wore was largely the same although more secondary sponsors had started to appear and a mini essay/poem had been added to the back to give more meaning to the blue line that first appeared in 2020. 

It read: “This is the line | The line between winning and losing | Between failure and success | Between good and great | Between dreaming and believing | Between convention and innovation |Between head and heart |It’s a fine line |It challenges everything we do |And we ride it every day." 

Sadly, that Adidas collaboration ran out in 2012 and the company has not been back to cycling's highest ranks since. A shame, we think.

Rapha

Adidas moved on after Wiggins’ success and were replaced by the relatively new but upmarket brand, Rapha. 

The team’s colours largely remained unchanged from their early days, although Rapha’s signature armband was added to the jersey on the left sleeve in the same shade of blue. The first jersey Rapha supplied to the team was largely black other than the armband on the jersey and the corresponding band which featured on the left thigh of the black shorts. 

Rapha kept the blue line on the back of the jersey although ditched the slightly cheesy poem. 

The following year, 2014, saw the exact same Rapha kit rolled out but with a few further sponsors added to the chest. Some fans saw that as too simple and boring, although that may have largely been associated with Sky’s supreme dominance left, right and centre as Chris Froome kept the Tour de France wins coming. 

In 2015 the jersey was once again largely the same. It was the next year that  Rapha started to really mix things up in its final stint as the team’s supplier. Horizontal blue and white lines were added to the jersey and featured both on the chest and rear, and the blue was slightly lightened to give it more of a sky blue feel. 

Under Rapha, the team’s dominance continued with Froome bagging his third Tour title and Sky making a breakthrough in the Classics with Wout Poels winning the team’s first Monument, Liège-Bastogne-Liège. 

Castelli

Italian giants Castelli took over as the team’s kit supplier in 2017. 

Castelli kept the team’s simple jersey design largely in place in the brand’s first year with the Rapha bands on the front replaced with thin blue and white dashes, which denoted different wins for the team.

It was during that year's Tour de France when it all began to briefly change with the introduction of their special edition white kit. The team rolled out what was essentially a simple colour reversal of the first Castelli jersey with the main colour being white and the thin dashes across the middle now sky blue and black. 

It was seen as yet another Dave Brailsford attempt at a marginal gain with white being supposedly cooler in the summer heat of the Tour de France. Whatever it was, it worked, as Geraint Thomas stormed to his first ever Grand Tour victory when the team kept white as the main jersey colour the following year. 

The first 2018 jersey was white with a blue panel across the chest featuring the Sky logo embossed in thick white print. It was the first time the team had returned to the central panel since the early Adidas kits. Its main highlight was Chris Froome’s sensational Giro d’Italia victory featuring that breakaway effort on stage 19. 

Yet another special edition kit was rolled out for the Tour, although the jersey was still white, as the team briefly became Sky Ocean Rescue as the television provider embarked on an environmental mission. The jersey’s most notable feature was a huge vertical image of a giant killer whale on the back panel. 

2019 was an interesting year for the team as Sky’s final jersey as a sponsor saw the team’s colours change at the start of the season to a royal blue fading to black on the jersey, but it was a kit which was only worn until March.

Ineos arrived as headline sponsor in the spring and Egan Bernal won yet another Tour title for the team as blue was kicked off the jersey design for good. The blue fade that featured earlier on in the year was replaced with a blood red colourway instead. 

The following year a plain blue jersey arrived with the Grenadier logo - an upside down red V shape - taking centre stage in what would be Castelli’s final spell as the team’s supplier. 

Bioracer

In 2022, Bioracer were brought in after the five-year deal with Castelli ended. 

Red kept its place on the first kit brought in by the Belgian brand which was a continuation of the design first used at the 2020 Tour when the team first transitioned from Sky to Ineos. The upside down V Grenadier logo disappeared as red panelling was introduced to the shoulders which faded out into the largely blue jersey. 

The main sponsor's logo changed back to a largely text based design which then featured vertically on the thighs of the shorts too.  

According to Dave Brailsford at the time the Bioracer partnership was announced, he had “always hoped” that the Belgian brand and the British team would link up such was his high regard for Bioracer’s innovation and expertise. 

Bioracer’s final year as supplier to the team saw a sensational win for Tom Pidcock at Strade Bianche. The jersey featured a more orangey red as its central colour with an eye-catching diamond style pattern on the sleeves and simple blue shorts and white socks. 

Gobik

Now we are up to the present day, and there is very little black or blue on the Ineos Grenadiers kit of the modern day, no more stripe, and definitely no Rapha armband. It remains to be seen if the squad can get back to their former glory days in the new strip, but they will certainly stand out doing it.

Which kit was your favourite?

Sir Bradley Wiggins has opened up on a horrifying three-year period of being abused by a coach, and has said he suffered “borderline rape and sexual abuse” beginning at the age of twelve.

Speaking on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast, Wiggins admitted that the face of the male coach - who he did not name - still haunts him now many years later. 

The former Tour de France and Olympic gold medal winning cyclist said that he now “hates cycling” and added that he only dedicated his life to it to distract him from the other issues he was experiencing. 

Speaking about his experiences, Wiggins said: “This happened over a three-year period. I can’t remember how many times it happened. We’re talking about incidents from very minor to borderline rape, sexual abuse, whatever term you want to use.”

Wiggins revealed that his alleged abuser began grooming him at the age of twelve at a local cycling club.

Last year, the Londoner who became the first British cyclist ever to win the Tour de France worked with the NSPCC on its “Listen up, Speak Up” campaign to raise awareness of child abuse.

The five-time Olympic champion told Cotton that subsequent interviews relating to the campaign were “the hardest part” of going public with his allegations.

“I was having to relive some of the minor incidents that happened to me with this coach to add weight to the campaign,” Wiggins said. "In recalling this stuff to add weight to the interviews and trying to really beef it up, I found I was recalling a lot of the incidents in my head over and over again- particularly this guy’s face.”

“It really hit me hard. I have to be careful how much I do to help people at the expense of myself,” he added. “My greatest shame was that another man had done that to me. I couldn't get my head around the abnormality of that- particularly at 13. That is a trauma. From that moment, I pretended it didn't happen, and I dedicated my life to cycling as a distraction.”

Wiggins explained that since going public, he has been contacted by old clubmates in relation to the allegations, and has discovered that the alleged abuser told other young riders that they would also be “the greatest cyclist of all time.”

“He used to say that to everyone he met,” Wiggins explained, “When I announced it, I got three messages from different clubmates who were in the same club at the time. They said that ‘looking back, we all knew really, and we should’ve done more to help you.”

Since retiring from the sport, Wiggins has spent time working as a racing pundit for Global Cycling Network (GCN) and other outlets. However, he confessed that he no longer has any interest in the sport in any form, and opened up on his past motivations for competing.

He also said that he got "no enjoyment" during his career, and his major achievements were just "like ticking a box."

“Now I don’t pay any interest to cycling- I couldn’t care less,” Wiggins said. "I don’t watch cycling anymore and have no interest in it. It filled a massive void in my life with a view to be close to my Dad. People say it’s a shame I’ve fallen out of love with cycling, but I was never in love with it- it was like a religion.”

He added: “You don’t fall in love with a religion, you adopt a religion. Now I’ve left my faith. I can’t stand it. I hated cycling, really. The act of riding a bike was a means to facilitate what I wanted to do with my life.”

Wiggins's son Ben is already a decorated junior rider and Bradley Wiggins said on the podcast: "I never got involved in his cycling career because I just wanted to be his Dad first and foremost. I didn't want to be the one who pushed him into cycling and coached him, getting him back from school and saying, now you need to do two hours on the bike.

"He'll come to me now and ask 'Dad do you think I should train today?' and I'll say, 'how do you feel?' And I can have a proper father son conversation with him. I think he'll be better than I was as a cyclist."

The NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331

The days of Bradley Wiggins on the back of a motorbike, chatting to camera, during the Tour de France might be numbered, as the former cyclist revealed that he wants a "normal job"

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday last week, the former Tour de France champion said that he does not want to be on Eurosport in 10 years, and that he was "going with the flow".

Wiggins was speaking after the launch of a new NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) campaign campaign to help people spot the signs of child abuse. 

At the same event, the five-time Olympic gold medallist said that the abuse he suffered as a child helped contribute to his success as a cyclist, saying that it is a "real contradiction" that the adversity he faced is what gave him the "drive to run away".

After the launch, Wiggins told the Mail that he thought about being a social worker, such was his change in focus from his days on the bike, and he was trying to find meaning in his life now.

"I’m 43 this year, so I’m just having to rethink what I want to do. I just want a normal job really," he said. "It’s hard to rethink what you want to do at 36 when you’ve been a cyclist for 20 years."

"When you retire, you go down the route of game shows and things like that. But then I did The Jump when I first stopped, and I found myself thinking: 'What am I doing?'" 

Last week we wondered whether Wiggins was on the ITV talent show The Masked Singer, which now seems unlikely, in retrospect.

In recent years, he has been a part of Eurosport/GCN's punditry team, both in the studio, and on location at races. However, this might not be going on for much longer.

"I found myself for many years not knowing what to do," Wiggins explained. "I do the punditry, but that all comes easy, and there’s no longevity in it. I’ve actually not extended my contract with Eurosport, so I don’t know if I’m going to be doing that this year. I really don’t want to be on Eurosport in 10 years’ time, doing cycling from the back of a motorbike. I’m just going with the flow at the moment.

"But this kind of thing [the NSPCC campaign] is where I want to go, helping at grass roots. The social worker idea was just the start of a process of moving towards something completely different, something fulfilling."

As for his charity work, and being an ambassador NSPCC, he said there has been a "huge shift" in what he expected he would be doing.

"It is rewarding, finding myself in this position, 10 years on from London 2012,’ he said. "I never imagined that I’d be kind of doing something as fulfilling as this and working for Mind [the mental health] charity, having come to terms with my own past. And then using my platform to help other people. It’s been a huge shift in what I thought I’d be doing for a living."

"I went through quite a lengthy process after I stopped in 2016 and started revisiting my past. One of the big things I’ve come to accept now is that maybe it [the abuse] was one of the reasons I was a bit of a contentious w****r at times. It [the abuse] really affected me in general, made me a bit insecure."

Good morning and welcome to today's live blog. Apparently it's Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year, so make sure you look out for yourself and do something you enjoy (*cough* ride your bike *cough*), if you can. 

I'll be here all day rounding up the latest cycling news, especially for you. If you'd like to have your say, feel free to drop me a line on Twitter. My handle is @t_davidson. 

Latest updates:

9:09 - Alex Manly sprints into the lead at Santos Tour Down Under 

9:43 - Topless climate protesters arrested at Tour Down Under

11:03 - Tributes paid to Lieuwe Westra, who died aged 40 on Saturday

11:24 - Strava offers price hike rationale

12:02 - Chris Froome targets 'top level', dismisses retirement

12:48 - The new cyclo-cross national champions

14:20 - Scott recall road and gravel models due to 'cracking' hazard

14:46 - Toon Aerts takes on part-time PE teacher role

15:05 - EF Education-EasyPost partners with junior cycling program

15:34 - Bradley Wiggins eyes future after punditry

16:31 - UCI issues update to individual time trial rules

17:01 - Chad Haga pens Sound of Music inspired song

Alex Manly storms into Tour Down Under lead after stage two

In the early hours of this morning, when the Australian sun was shining, Jayco AlUla's Alex Manly sprinted to victory in stage two of the Santos Tour Down Under, claiming the race's orange leader's jersey. 

The 26-year-old Australian beat her compatriot Georgia Baker (EF Education-Tibco-SVB) to the line, where she took 12 bonus seconds to move into the overall lead. 

The race played out over a lumpy 90km course between Birdwood and Uraidla in the Adelaide hills. 

Baker currently trails Manly by eight seconds in the GC, with FDJ-Suez's Grace Brown also at eight seconds in third. 

Climate protesters arrested after baring breasts at Tour Down Under

Three women, who uncovered their breasts to the passing peloton at the Women's Santos Tour Down Under, have been arrested in South Adelaide, Australia, charged with indecent exposure. 

The women, aged between 69 and 74, were allegedly part of a climate protest against the race's title sponsor, Santos, a leading oil and gas producer. 

"We are baring our ageing breasts and our wobbly bums in the hope of shocking," one protester said at the race. "We want people to see that this company is not benevolent. It is prepared to destroy future life on earth in order to make profits." 

Last week, Tour Down Under director Stuart O'Grady said he hoped environmental protesters would act peacefully, and not impede on the safety of the riders. 

"Everyone has got their right to their own opinion, to protest, do what they may, but I don’t think blocking the cycling tracks and getting on course would be very wise," he said. "And if that starts becoming a liability or a danger to the riders then that’s going to escalate it to a whole other level and that wouldn’t be good for anybody."

The three women have been released on bail and will appear at a later date before Christies Beach Magistrates court.

Retired pro Lieuwe Westra dies, aged 40

Tributes have been paid to retired Dutch rider Lieuwe Westra, who died aged 40 on Saturday. 

The former Astana rider, who took 13 victories throughout his 11-year career, was found unresponsive at work in Zwaagdijk, Netherlands. His biographer, Thomas Sijtsma, later confirmed that he had passed away, despite CPR attempts to resuscitate him.

"The former cyclist fought with himself in recent years and lost," Sijtsma wrote on Twitter. "Rest in peace, beast."

Westra suffered with depression after finishing his career in 2017. "Lieuwe Westra had a very hard time in recent months," Sijtsma said. "But as far as is known, there is no suggestion of suicide." 

Westra's former team-mate Johnny Hoogerland, who he rode alongside at Vacansoleil, wrote: "Lieuwe my friend. What happened to you the last years? We are so terribly sad that your life ended already today. I'm very sorry that we could not help you more. Will never forget what you did for me when we were teammates. Find your rest above us."

His former team, Astana Qazaqstan, also tweeted: "We are shocked by the dreadful news about the untimely death of Lieuwe Westra... we express our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones…"

Strava responds to price hike criticism

Exercise tracking app Strava has responded to criticism of its recent subscription price hikes, announced earlier this month. 

First reported by BikeRadar, the company looks set to increase the price of its monthly subscription from £6.99 to £8.99 and its annual membership from £47.99 to £54.99.

In a statement shared last week, Strava said: "As we continue to invest in your experience, our prices may change to better reflect new features and market conditions. The decision to change our price was not taken lightly.

The company gave its rationale for the price hikes, citing new features, product updates and local market conditions. Price changes, it added, will vary depending on region and preferred platform.

The full statement can be accessed on Strava's website. 

Chris Froome sets sights on return to 'top level'

Four-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome has said he's "looking to get to the top level" as he readies himself for his season debut at the Santos Tour Down Under. 

The Israel Premier Tech rider was was taken into intensive care in 2019 after crashing into a wall in a course recon at the Critérium du Dauphiné. He suffered fractures to his sternum, neck, femur, elbow and ribs, and also lost four pints of blood. He returned to WorldTour racing eight months later, but has since struggled to regain his form.

Speaking in a pre-race press conference on Sunday, Froome said: "I feel I've been given a second chance. I've been given an opportunity to come back to bike racing and the sport I love. Had the crash marked the end of my career, I'd have felt I still had more to give.

The 37-year-old added that he still gets a lot of pleasure from cycling and is enjoying his time at Israel-Premier Tech. "It's as if I've rewound 15 years," he said, "I'm looking to get to the top level. It's a fresh approach for me and hoping to do it for a few more years."

Froome also revealed that he will travel to Africa for next month's Tour de Rwanda, scheduled for 19-26 February.

The Tour Down Under will start tomorrow at 7:30 GMT (8:30 CET) with a 5.5km time trial prologue in Adelaide, Australia.  

Cyclo-cross national champions crowned

In case you missed it, a number of country's held their national cyclo-cross championships over the weekend. Here's a list of the winners to look out for in the season's remaining races: 

UK 

Men's elite: Cameron Mason 

Women's elite: Zoe Bäckstedt

Cycling Weekly reporter Tom Thewlis spent the day in the mud in Cumbria on Sunday. You can catch his race report here.  

Netherlands 

Men's elite: Lars van der Haar

Women's elite: Puck Pieterse 

Belgium 

Men's elite: Michael Vanthourenhout

Women's elite: Sanne Cant

France

Men's elite: Clément Venturini 

Women's elite: Hélène Clauzel

Italy

Men's elite: Filippo Fontana

Women's elite: Silvia Persico

Spain

Men's elite: Felipe Orts

Women's elite: Lucía Gónzalez Blanco

Scott recalls road and gravel models due to 'cracking' hazard

Scott bikes has issued a voluntary recall of certain models from its 2022 Speedster and Gravel line-up due to a potential issue with the forks.

In-house testing found that the steerer tube/fork bridge can break without warning, with the recall notice describing “cracking within the fork steerer”. Naturally, such a failure presents a serious crash hazard for users.

However, despite the recall, done in cooperation with national recall authorities, Scott has stated that there have been no cases or reports of fork failure or related accidents to date and as such the recall is a pre-emptive move.

For more information, check out the full story written by Cycling Weekly Tech reporter Luke Friend. 

Toon Aerts working as a PE teacher while he faces two-year ban 

Suspended cyclo-cross racer Toon Aerts has reportedly taken up a new job as a PE teacher in his native Belgium. 

The 29-year-old returned a positive test result for the banned substance letrozole earlier this year and is currently facing a two-year ban from competition. 

Speaking to Het Nieuwsblad about his new role, Aerts said: “I was looking for a job and heard through the grapevine that they were looking for someone there.

"There were students who recognised me immediately, others didn’t know who I am at all. I assume that the first group will inform the second about my story. That will go around quickly. I didn’t get any comments about it and I think that’s good. I like to keep those things separate.”

The Belgian has not raced since February 2022 and denies all allegations of doping. He has said he will do everything to prove his innocence, arguing that letrozole must have entered his body through contamination. 

“I am convinced that I will take my place in cyclocross again," he said last month. "I have a lot of uncertainties, but one thing is certain: my second career will start on February 16, 2024 at the latest.”

EF Education-EasyPost partners with junior squad

WorldTour team EF Education-EasyPost has joined forces with ONTO, one of North America's most promising junior cycling programs. 

The partnership, which will see the junior squad compete as EF Education-ONTO, seeks to develop the next generation of cycling talent in the US, and prepare them for careers as professionals. 

In a press release shared this afternoon, EF team manager Jonathan Vaughters said: "I hope that this project shows that talented kid in Ohio, or Québec, or Los Angeles, who might have seen the Tour de France on Instagram and decided that they want to be a bike racer, that they can get there if they work hard and commit to it.

"We’re going to be keeping a close eye on North American junior races. Prove yourself there, and EF Education-ONTO could be your shot to learn what it takes to race as a pro and show what you can do against the best in the world.”

Is Bradley Wiggins's punditry career coming to a close? 

Former Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins has hinted that he might soon draw the curtain on his punditry career, adding that he is currently out of contract with Eurosport. 

In an interview with Mail on Sunday, the Brit said there is "no longevity" in punditry.

"I’ve actually not extended my contract with Eurosport," he said, "so I don’t know if I’m going to be doing that this year.

"I really don’t want to be on Eurosport in 10 years’ time, doing cycling from the back of a motorbike. I’m just going with the flow at the moment."

Wiggins has been part of Eurosport's cycling team since 2019, and has his own podcast with the channel, which was last updated in July last year. Asked what he hopes to do in the future, the former cyclist said: "I do the punditry, but that all comes easy, and there's no longevity in it." 

He added that he would like to work with grass-roots social campaigns, such as the NSPCC's recently launched Listen Up, Speak Up, which he is backing.

"The social worker idea was just the start of a process moving towards something completely different, something fulfilling," he said. 

UCI tightens time trial rules

The UCI has today updated its rules surrounding individual time trials, writing that vehicles must now remain at least 25 metres behind the rider. 

The rule, which was previously updated from 10 metres to 15 metres in November last year, aims to prevent riders from gaining an unfair aerodynamic advantage. 

A study by the Eindhoven University of Technology found that a car driving 10 metres behind the athlete offers an advantage of 0.05 of a second per kilometre at 46.8km/h. This is equivalent to one second in a 20km time trial.  

At 15 metres, there is no advantage. 

The UCI said: "After consultation with the parties concerned, the decision was taken to increase the minimum distance between the rider and the following vehicle to 25 m. This distance, which is greater than the stated 15 m, ensures that the presence of vehicles does not have an effect on the performance of the cyclist.

"Furthermore, the 25 m distance aims to increase rider safety by providing the driver of the vehicle with longer reaction times in the case of an unexpected mishap or incident."

The rule does not apply to vehicles in the race convoy, which are allowed to go within closer proximity to the riders. Anyone who drives dangerously in the convoy may be suspended for up to seven days and dealt a fine.  

Chad Haga pens Sound of Music inspired song

Human Powered Health's Chad Haga has written a song to pass the time on his team training camp.

The lyrics, written to the tune of 'My Favourite Things' from The Sound of Music, are inspired by his ongoing struggle with patience in between training efforts. 

So here it goes. Warm up those vocal cords, dig out a karaoke version of the original song and sing along.

"Standing by roadsides
The time keeps on slippin'
We should get moving
But we just don't clip in 

We did our efforts
Now let's move along
This is my "can we please get moving" song"

Now we're heading into chorus...

"There's no reason
To just stand here
We've been here long enough 

I don't like this down time, there's still far to go
and standing around is slowwwww"

That's all for today's live blog. If you want some entertaining evening reading, check out my colleague Adam Becket's exposé on Tadej Pogacar's hair tufts. 

Do they form naturally, or might the Slovenian be pulling them through his helmet deliberately?  

Bradley Wiggins has said that the abuse he suffered as a child helped contribute to his success as a cyclist, saying that it is a "real contradiction" that the adversity he faced is what gave him the "drive to run away".

The former Tour de France and multiple Olympic champion alleged last year that he was groomed by a coach when he was a 13 year old, saying that he had "buried" it, as he had no one to tell as a teenager.

He is helping front a new NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) campaign to help people spot the signs of child abuse. The campaign is called 'Listen Up, Speak Up', and aims to equip adults with the skills necessary to help keep children safe.

At the launch of the strategy Wiggins spoke about the impact of abuse on him, and how it fed into him becoming a top cyclist. 

"I kind of think it contributed to why I was so great at cycling. It’s a real contradiction in that the adversity is what gave me the drive to run away," he said, The Guardian reported.

"I think there’s a difference between being good and great at something and my greatest ability was riding on my own. The drive that came within, particularly with cycling, it was a means to facilitate escaping from where I grew up. 

"So I’d ride for hours away from Kilburn… the bike became a vehicle to run away from my childhood problems. The longer I could spend on my own time-trialling for an Hour Record or an Olympic time trial, in my own head was an escapism from the person I was. When I stopped cycling, I didn’t have that and I had to accept who I was."

"I think lots of people that are great at something have a drive that kind of stems from adversity… What we can do is change and accept it, learn to stop running away from it and help others."

Over the last year, the NSPCC has recorded a 14% increase in reports to its helpline of in-person sexual abuse concerns, with over 8,000 adults calling in. More than 27,000 other calls were taken about neglect and physical and emotional abuse of children. The new campaign, which aims to reach a million people, includes a free 10-minute digital training course plus emails from experts on the action people can take.

Wiggins said that there was suspicion around the person that abused him at the time of the incidents involving him, but nothing was ever done, as he urged people to speak up.

"I became aware that onlookers at the time, other coaches, had recognised the signs and heard the rumours but did nothing about it," he said. 

"Rather than worrying [if] you’re intruding or intervening or the consequences of that… if you’re right wouldn’t you rather just go in and take that risk?"

"This campaign is so important. I think we all have a responsibility as adults, parents, onlookers, coaches, teachers to recognise the signs."

Halfway through watching a man in a wheely bin costume sing Let Me Entertain You by Robbie Williams, I was not thinking about Bradley Wiggins' victory on stage 20 of the 2012 Tour de France to Chartres, where he confirmed his coronation as the first ever British Tour winner.

However, comedian Mo Gilligan clearly was, suggesting that the latest celeb on ITV's The Masked Singer was the five-time Olympic Champion.

"He's a cyclist, how are we not getting this?" Enquired the stand-up of his fellow judges. This feels ripe for a Cycling Weekly investigation.

There had been commotion in CW towers on Monday morning, as speculation that  Wiggins might possibly be one of the characters on The Masked Singer, which has returned for 2023, reached us.

Now, I can't claim to be be an expert on Saturday night television, but I am the resident music expert here at CW, having previously analysed Pieter Serry's Giro d'Italia playlist and taken a look at the history of the Vuelta a España through its official songs over the past forty or so years.

Therefore it was decided that I would take on the arduous task of working out whether Bradley Wiggins, knight of the realm, Olympic and Tour de France champion, is Rubbish.

For the uninitiated, The Masked Singer is a celebrity singing competition-cum-hidden identity show, where various well-known faces dress up in extraordinary costumes and battle to win against one another; once they lose a vote, divided between the public and the judges, they are forced to reveal who they are.

Previous series have seen British comedian Jason Manford unmasked as "Hedgehog" and former Neighbour's star-turned pop singer Natalie Imbruglia as "Panda", so this is the level of renown we are dealing with here.

"How does this relate to cycling?" is the obvious question here, and the answer is tenuously, but should the series four character of "Rubbish" prove to be a cycling knight, then we should really get ahead of the biggest news story this side of the Tour Down Under.

Given we really have no idea who the man in the wheely bin outfit is (it could be a woman, but it's very unlikely), there are just a few clues to be going off.

The green-suited character came on stage to 'My Old Man's a Dustman', which sort of fits in with Wiggins' cockney-esque vibes (though the former Tour champ is from west London not east London), and then the audience was treated to a film of hints, which could prove decisive. The clues were played over Parklife by Blur, which does not feel to be a particular hint for the 2012 Tour winner.

The mystery person said "I'm the one you've been waiting for, and I'm here to work", and was then shown to be passing different colours of bin - red, yellow, green and blue, with a no.1 sign on the red one - which could be the Olympic rings, without black, I suppose.

The person then said "cleaning up, that's what I do best", before add "we're all solo, each of us meant for different things", which could be a reference to winning lots of titles and being part of a team but also winning individually, but that seems pretty insubstantial evidence for it being Wiggins.

The clue finished with the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky, which again, could be a link to 2012? Maybe, but I'm unaware of any connection between the man from Ghent and either Russian Romantic music or Napoleon's march on Moscow.

After this fun delve through some reasonably useless hints, "Rubbish" performed Let Me Entertain You reasonably well; better than I imagine Wiggins ever could sing, but having never heard him try before, maybe I'm wrong. It didn't sound like him, but then who knows what kind of pipes he has on him. I'm just as in the dark as the rest of you.

The judges, pop star Rita Ora; TV host Davina McCall; chat show host Jonathan Ross; and comedian Mo Gilligan all then had a go at guessing who the person in the costume was; Antony Costa out of Blue and Dean Gaffney were both mentioned as tips, but it was Gilligan who set us all onto the trail of Wiggins.

The comedian suggested Chris Hoy first, which given his accent, seems pretty impossible, but then later circled back round to Wiggins, which is at least plausible. 

Sadly, our man in the wheely bin lost to "Pigeon", who I reckon is CBBC documentary maker Stacey Dooley (don't ask how I know this), which meant he had to face the judges once more to see if he would make it through to another week. Fortunately he did, which means we get to endure weeks more of speculation of the identity of "Rubbish".

If one was to argue against Wiggins being the one in disguise, I would probably say they surely would have made some kind of sideburn reference, and can he really sing that well? I'm not convinced.

Wiggins has previously said that he doesn't want to become a "pointless celebrity". On his retirement he told the Guardian: "You don’t want to become just this pointless celebrity who’s here, there and everywhere, going on Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook. I don’t want to become a captain on Question Of Sport and go on every week playing the fool."

He then went onto appear on Channel 4's ski-jumping celeb show The Jump, and said then: "Major retiring Olympians such as Sir Steve Redgrave have also trod this path, I see this as a sporting challenge and want to go out there and win it. Just don’t call me a celebrity."

Since then, however, he has largely stuck to cycling, being one of the presenters on Eurosport/GCN, although in the past few weeks he did appear on a celebrity version of The Chase, also on ITV, which maybe might hint at participation in other ITV celebrity shows, like The Masked Singer.

He would not be the first cyclist to dress up on TV; in 2021 Nairo Quintana appeared on Colombia's version of The Masked Singer dressed as a chameleon. 

Let's wait and see if the five-time Olympic gold medallist will be on I'm A Celebrity... at the end of the year.

Bradley Wiggins has joined a campaign aiming to protect children in sport, launched by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) this week.

The former Tour de France champion has previously spoken about being groomed by a coach when he was younger, and has joined the NSPCC's Keeping Your Child Safe in Sport Week initiative.

In a press release, Wiggins said: "We must make sport safe for children and make it easier for parents - and all people in sport - to recognise and understand how they themselves can support a safer sports environment."

The child protection charity said that the number of adults contacting a helpline about children in sport has almost doubled in the last five years.

A survey of 1,000 parents had shown that 15% of respondents did not feel confident they could spot the signs of their child suffering abuse at their local sports club.

The number of calls to the NSPCC's helpline in which the locations of concern were a sports setting increased from 155 to 301 between 2017 and 2022.

The charity has released a set of resources to help ensure children are safe in sport settings, and are urging people to use the hashtag #safeinsport on social media.

The press release from the NSPCC said: "It's important to look for a sports club, group or activity that takes the safety and wellbeing of your child seriously. Always check if the club or organisation is accredited or affiliated to a body (e.g. a sports governing body), as this should mean they have the right safeguarding policies and procedures in place."

Earlier this year, Wiggins alleged that he was groomed by a coach when he was a 13-year-old, saying that he had "buried" it, as he had no one to tell as a teenager.

In an interview with Mens Health UK in April, the former Tour de France winner said: "I was groomed by a coach when I was younger – I was about 13 – and I never fully accepted that.”

He confirmed that this was sexual grooming, adding: “It all impacted me as an adult… I buried it."

Wiggins said that he could not tell his stepfather, due to a violent relationship and the criticism he received for just wearing cycling clothing.

He had spoken before about his mental health problems; the former Team Sky rider suffers from depression, but never his allegations of grooming.

The NSPCC's Keeping Your Child Safe in Sport Week campaign runs this week.

Many climbs have earned their place in cycling folklore across the years. Some have gained their notoriety due to the misfortune of those attempting to conquer them, others due to the scenes of triumph and glory painted by some of the sport's most iconic figures. When you think of Ventoux you think of the late Tom Simpson, the Marmolada in the Giro d’Italia is a climb closely associated with Marco Pantani. Most monoliths of the Dolomites, Alps or Pyrenees are intertwined with an iconic story from a bike race. 

La Super Planche des Belles Filles is just one of those climbs. Buried deep in the Vosges Mountains within eastern France, the mountain has played host to some of the most dramatic moments in recent memory at the Tour de France. In 2012 Chris Froome displayed the signs of what was to come in his career as he famously left the winner that year, Bradley Wiggins, behind in pursuit of a memorable stage win. 

Eight years later, the climb would become synonymous with the suffering inflicted on Primož Roglič by an almighty Tadej Pogačar. That infamous day at the 2020 Tour de France was one of those sporting moments that reminds you just why you fell in love with the race. Dramatic, edge of the seat viewing that will be remembered for years to come. Each turn of Pogačar's pedals that fateful afternoon twisted the knife in Roglič's torment. A day full of glorious memories for the defending champion and one that turned the Tour de France on its head.

The climb itself is a beast of a mountain. By the time the riders reach the summit, they will have climbed more than 1,035 metres from Plancher Les Mines, averaging at a leg-sapping 8.5% gradient. Although the torture inflicted on sore and aching muscles will not end there. On Friday the finish line will be at the end of a short gravel section previously used in the Tour which rockets up to 24%. A gradient that would generate a shudder in even the most fearless of climbers. 

After winning a dramatic stage in 2019 that finished on the mountain gravel, Dylan Teuns (Bahrain Victorious) is a man who knows how difficult the climb is. Teuns told Cycling Weekly that the addition of the gravel section makes it that more challenging.

The Belgian rider said: “It was my first win in the Tour and will always be a special one. It’s a hard climb and then they added the gravel section in. It was the first time they had done that when I won and it made it super special. The gravel section for sure makes it even more difficult, the steepest part is just there at the end.”

Riders who can tackle the short, sharp hills are unlikely to make it to the summit with the favourites, which means we’re likely to potentially see a new polka-dot jersey wearer at the end of the day. Magnus Cort Nielsen (EF-Education EasyPost) took the Polka-Dot jersey over the course of the opening weekend and has held it valiantly all week. Although by the time Saturday morning dawns, it may well have been removed from his shoulders as the Danes time is up. 

‘Plank of the Beautiful Women’ as it’s otherwise known, requires a different breed of bike rider. It requires those riders that possess an ability to go so far into the red that nobody else can follow. That’s meant as no disrespect to Cort Nielsen. He will well know that it’s not a climb for him. It’s where those hoping to not allow Pogačar to canter away to overall glory will need to come into their own. 

Ineos Grenadiers's pair, Adam Yates and Geraint Thomas, are two of those riders. As is Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma). However the main character who has a score to settle here is Primož Roglič. 

In a heavy crash on Wednesdays cobbled stage, Roglic dislocated his shoulder before then putting it back into place himself. Most mere mortals would have packed it up there and then, however Roglič has been there before. He is a purebred warrior who knows exactly how to suffer and still come out fighting. Moments before Tadej Pogačar stormed to victory on stage six, Roglič put in a trademark attack looking to fight back with a stage win and to show he’s not out yet. 

In 2022, ‘La Planche’ will have a key role to play in two races. On July 31 it plays host to the final stage of the inaugural Tour de France Femmes, and could well be the theatre for a huge final battle between the race leaders. 

Featuring at the end of the first week this year in the Tour de France, it may be too early for ‘La Planche’ to play a decisive role like it did so stunningly two years ago. However, once the gravel of the final few meters arrives Primož Roglič will be more than ready to put his demons to bed and show he’s up for the fight all the way to Paris. 

Geraint Thomas has an interesting biggest fan: Bradley Wiggins. 

In a conference call on Thursday, the Tour de France winner turned Eurosport/GCN pundit seemed almost in awe of his former teammate's staying power at the top of the sport: "I've never met anyone like him, who has such a strong mindset really."

It should be said that the pair of British Tour champions are close; they were on the same pro cycling team for five years, and they were both part of the gold-winning Team Pursuit squad in at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

However, it must be quite nice to be so forcefully backed by one of British Cycling's greats, even if he is one of your mates.

While Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) are widely considered the favourites for the Tour, Wiggins thinks the Ineos Grenadiers rider has a chance at the race, starting with the prologue in Copenhagen next Friday. 

“Even though he might not have the physical attributes he had a couple of years ago when he won the Tour – as happens to us all – that recent win in the Tour de Suisse was incredible. For sure, he’s in podium contention,” he said. “And because of the real racer that Geraint is, if it gets down to a position where there’s a little bit of cat and mouse between UAE and Jumbo-Visma, he could slip into a move and surprise everyone.”

The Welshman's victory at the Tour de Suisse last Sunday was the latest big victory of his career, joining his wins at the Tour, the Critérium du Dauphiné, the Tour de Romandie, and Paris-Nice on his list of career achievements. With the caveat that only 76 riders finished the Swiss race, as the GC was hugely affected by Covid positives, the Ineos rider is now on his way to the Tour in contention for the yellow jersey.

The last time Thomas won a WorldTour stage race in June was 2018, and weeks later he went on to triumph at the Tour, the high point of his long career. That time around it was the Dauphiné, and in different circumstances, but he will be taking some confidence from his performance in Switzerland.

"He's 36 now, he's coming back from a couple of injury-struck years," Wiggins said. "Maybe there's a little bit of him challenging for his status within the team as a leader the last couple of years with [Richard] Carapaz and [Egan] Bernal. He's now sort of forged himself into a point where he's, for me, the clear leader of the team, having won the Tour of Suisse. 

"It's amazing to see him come back year after year with all the injuries he's had and sustained and still get himself into form for the Tour. Even though he's finished first and second in the past I think there's an element of him which is the underdog really and he's in a great position now where he can bounce off the other riders."

Ineos are expected to lineup with Dani Martínez as co-leader, with Adam Yates also in the mix, although the Lancastrian has recently had a bout of Covid. This might leave the door open for Thomas to step forward.

"He has clearly put his hat back into the ring now by winning the Tour de Suisse," Wiggins said. "I've known Geraint since he was a kid really, the day you dismiss Geraint Thomas is at your peril."

Meanwhile, the 2012 Tour winner backed his former teammate - and rival - Chris Froome to show a glimpse of him old self at this year's race.

"He may surprise us all," Wiggins explained. "GC may be beyond him, but it would be nice to see him up the road in a break and pull off a stage win."

The Tour de France begins in Copenhagen next Friday.

Bradley Wiggins will be back on the race motorbike providing regular updates from inside the peloton for discovery+, GCN+ and Eurosport. There will also be regular episodes of 'The Bradley Wiggins Show' podcast throughout the race. Every stage of the Tour de France will be live across discovery+, GCN+ and Eurosport in the UK. Territory restrictions may apply in your region.

The last time Mark Cavendish won on the Champs-Élysées, he was given a golden leadout by Bradley Wiggins in the yellow jersey. That was his third victory of 2012 in his only year at Team Sky, a deluxe add-on to their first Tour de France triumph.

Ten years on, Wiggins might not be riding - he is now a Eurosport/GCN pundit - but Cavendish still is, and has won 11 stages since 2012. Last summer he won four, equalling Eddy Merckx's record of 34 in the process; he also won the green jersey, his second. 

Despite this, it is looking unlikely that the Manx Missile will line up in Copenhagen next week for Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl. His team are thought to be heading there with Fabio Jakobsen instead, with the man 12 years his junior seen as the better fit by the team.

Earlier this year, Cavendish said that reports of a rivalry between him and Jakobsen over a Tour de France spot were "lazy", but it is thought to be a toss-up between the pair for a place in Quick-Step's team.

“My assumption is that Mark’s probably not going,” Wiggins said in a press conference on Thursday.

"Patrick [Lefevere] knows what he’s doing but from a personal point of view, it would be a real shame if Cav’s not there,” he added.

Wiggins and Cavendish only spent two separate seasons on the same cycling team, at High Road in 2008 and then Team Sky in 2012, but have a close bond forged through British Cycling. The pair competed together on the track in the Madison, winning the World Championship race together in 2016.

This year, Cavendish has won four races, including a stage of the Giro d'Italia, while Jakobsen has won on ten occasions, and is thought to be the team's choice for the Tour, although the Quick-Step squad has not been announced yet.

“We’ve not got the argument that he shouldn’t go based on what he did last year and any other team would be crazy not to bring him to the Tour,” Wiggins said.

“He’s just won a stage in the Giro and I do find it hard, aside from the personal relationship that I have with him, if I look at it from a performance point of view, as to why you wouldn’t take him as part of a sponsor point of view, the impact that he has on the rest of the team, and the fact that he won four stages and the green jersey last year. 

"Why wouldn’t you take the defending green jersey back to the team? I can’t see anyone in that team who would merit going ahead of him. It’s a strange thing.”

This year's Tour is not exceptionally sprinter-friendly, with many of the flatter stages coming with the potential of crosswinds and chaos, and very few flat finishes too.

The race begins in Copenhagen next Friday.

Bradley Wiggins will be back on the race motorbike providing regular updates from inside the peloton for discovery+, GCN+ and Eurosport. There will also be regular episodes of 'The Bradley Wiggins Show' podcast throughout the race. Every stage of the Tour de France will be live across discovery+, GCN+ and Eurosport in the UK. Territory restrictions may apply in your region.

British Cycling has contacted Sir Bradley Wiggins to offer him "full support", following allegations that he was sexually groomed by a cycling coach when he was 13. 

Wiggins told Mens Health UK he had no one to talk to as a teenager, so instead had to bury what he later confirmed in the interview as sexual grooming. 

Wiggins said: "I was groomed by a coach when I was younger – I was about 13 – and I never fully accepted that.”

British Cycling confirmed its safeguarding team has reached out to the former Tour de France winner, with a spokesperson also encouraging other victims of abuse to seek help. 

The British Cycling spokesperson said: “We are deeply concerned by the matter raised by Sir Bradley Wiggins and our safeguarding team has made contact with him today to offer our full support.

“We would encourage anybody who has suffered abuse or has concerns about the welfare of others – regardless of when the incident took place – to utilise the support offered both by our trained team at British Cycling and the dedicated NSPCC Helpline, which in turn helps us to ensure that our sport is a safe and welcoming place for all.”

A violent relationship with his stepfather and the criticism he received for simply wearing cycling clothing meant Wiggins didn't have any support at home, either. 

The NSPCC commended the "courage" and "bravery" Wiggins has shown in speaking out, discussing the long-term impacts abuse can have on someone, regardless of how long ago it occurred. 

Michelle North, head of the NSPCC’s Child Protection in Sport Unit, said: “It takes a lot of courage to speak out about sexual abuse and Sir Bradley Wiggins has shown real bravery in revealing how he was groomed as a young cyclist by his coach who should have been protecting him.

“Sports coaches hold a great deal of power and influence over the children in their care and can all too easily exploit this trust to groom and abuse them.

“It’s common for victims to feel guilt and shame or to even be unaware that they are being abused and some may not come to accept it until decades later but nonetheless the impact can be devastating and long lasting.”

Sir Bradley Wiggins has alleged that he was groomed by a coach when he was a 13 year old, saying that he had "buried" it, as he had no one to tell as a teenager.

In an interview with Mens Health UK, the former Tour de France winner said: "I was groomed by a coach when I was younger – I was about 13 – and I never fully accepted that.”

He confirmed that this was sexual grooming, adding: “It all impacted me as an adult… I buried it."

Wiggins said that he could not tell his stepfather, due to a violent relationship and the criticism he received for just wearing cycling clothing.

"My stepfather was quite violent to me, he used to call me a faggot for wearing Lycra and stuff, so I didn’t think I could tell him," he explained. "I was such a loner… I just wanted to get out of the environment. I became so insular. I was quite a strange teenager in many ways and I think the drive on the bike stemmed from adversity.”

He has spoken before about his mental health problems; the former Team Sky rider suffers from depression, but never his allegations of grooming.

Wiggins said that he has spent most of his life trying to work out his relationship with his father, the Australian cyclist Gary Wiggins, who left the family when Bradley was young and who died in 2008 following a fight at a house party.

“It was definitely to do with my dad," he said. "Never getting answers when he was murdered in 2008. He left us when I was little, so I met him for the first time when I was 18. We rekindled some kind of relationship but then we didn’t speak for the last couple of years before he was murdered…

"He was my hero. I wanted to prove myself to him. He was a good cyclist – he could have been really good – but he was a wasted talent. He was an alcoholic, a manic depressive, quite violent and he took a lot of amphetamines and [sports] drugs back then.”

The five-time Olympic champion said that he fell out of love with cycling after 2012, the year he won the Tour and the time trial discipline at the Olympics.

"Life was never the same again," Wiggins said. "I was thrust into this fame and adulation that came with the success…

"I’m an introverted, private person. I didn’t know who ‘me’ was, so I adopted a kind of veil – a sort of rock star veil. It wasn’t really me… It was probably the unhappiest period of my life. Everything I did was about winning for other people, and the pressures that came with being the first British winner of the Tour. I really struggled with it.”

On his relationship with Ineos Grenadiers boss Sir Dave Brailsford, Wiggins said he was like a "big brother".

“Oh yeah, we go back 20 years," he said. "He’s like a big brother, just maybe one I don’t talk to all the time. But you couldn’t go through all the success we had – British Cycling, Team Sky – without a bond.”

He was asked whether Brailsford was successful due to his ruthlessness, to which Wiggins replied "absolutely". 

"He probably expected me to be more like him," he said. "My problem was there was a human being inside me. Dave is a big c**t, a proper c**t, and I say that as a term of endearment because to be successful you have to be. I was at times, Chris Froome was. 

"You have to be ruthless and c**tish. It’s not nice, and you know you’re doing it, but you know if you take your foot off the gas, you’re going to pay a price.”

Wiggins also spoke about how he manages his mental health day-to-day.

"I have to have routine," he said. "Training every day, it’s important. Not drinking too much… With my depression, if I’m not looking after myself it manifests more like a mania. 

"I always thought of depression as taking you to a dark room in a stoop. I try to be funnier and end up being shocking and contentious.”

Bradley Wiggins was speaking to Men’s Health ‘Talking Heads’ columnist, Alastair Campbell, in the May issue of the magazine, on sale from 20th April

In the corner of the press zone in the middle of the Roubaix velodrome after all the riders had finished was a man in a motorbike jacket, looking like he had just ridden Paris-Roubaix himself.

That man wasn't just a random motorbike pilot or a photographer, nor an itinerant who had wandered into the wrong section, it was Sir Bradley Wiggins.

The former Tour de France winner had spent the day on the back of a motorbike for Eurosport/GCN coverage, and described his experience as "harder than doing it on a bike".

He raced The Hell of the North eight times, finishing ninth in 2014, but his time on the motorbike gave him a different insight into the race.

"It was really tough out there, I mean you can really appreciate how hard it is for the riders from that point of view.

"It's the first time I've seen it from this side of the motorbike, from Paris-Roubaix anyway. I appreciate how hard it is. Fair play to the riders, it was incredible."

His former team, Ineos Grenadiers, played a blinder on Sunday, winning Roubaix for a first time after 13 attempts through Dylan van Baarle.

An Ineos-engineered split in the crosswinds early on left key favourites like Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Mads Pederson missing out, while Ineos packed in seven riders.

While the race came back together, it unsettled the bunch and left a mark on the race.

"It was like typical Dave Brailsford, to hell with tradition and do something not from the textbook and break the mould really," Wiggins said. "They did that on the section where nobody would expect that to work. They had everyone there, and they all sacrificed their chances for everyone. Luke Rowe gave his wheel to [Filippo] Ganna, Ganna did his job for [Michał] Kwiatkowski, he did his job for the team.

"They really deserved it today, better than anyone. They rode more like a team than anyone today."

The crosswinds split was incredibly unusual for a race like Roubaix, which normally only blows apart once it reaches the first sector of cobbles.

"There has been a shift in traditions, especially this race," Wiggins said. Normally the first 100k the break goes, and everyone waits until the first sectors, but Ineos threw the textbook out the window."

The team have been in supreme form throughout this Classics period, and have won the last three one-day races they have taken part in, from the Amstel Gold Race last Sunday to Roubaix this week.

Wiggins explained that the huge change in form came after the team had gone through a bit of "a lull in the last few years, a bit of disappointment". 

"They've also had to learn a different way of racing, and it has taken them a few years to do that," he said.

"The guys that are doing well here in these classics, are all the guys that are supporting the big guys in the grand tours. In the past they had a classics squad, like with [Ian] Stannard, that would stop after here and have a break and then do the Vuelta [a España], but they seem to have one team that can cover all aspects of cycling at the moment, which I guess is what the sport is about."

The team's future is bright, too, with young riders like Ben Turner, who impressed on Sunday, and Brabantse Pijl winner Magnus Sheffield. Don't forget Tom Pidcock, either.

"Turner today was incredible, to see him up there," Wiggins said. "Just getting dropped before Carrefour de l'Arbe, and after having a big fall too. And to see him up there in the Tour of Flanders too two weeks ago, it really bodes well for the future."

The only way Ineos Grenadiers can definitely beat Tadej Pogačar at the Tour de France is to sign him and send him to the Giro d'Italia instead, Bradley Wiggins has argued.

The 2012 Tour winner was reflecting on how he would beat the precocious Slovenian, who has won the last two editions of the race.

After dominating the Tour between 2012 and 2019, winning seven of eight, the team now known as Ineos Grenadiers face questions over the leadership of the team heading into this summer.

Egan Bernal might be back on a bike, but it looks like Adam Yates and Dani Martínez will head up the team in Copenhagen. Yates has finished fourth before, but that was in 2016, while Martínez's best result was 28th overall. Richard Carapaz, who finished third last year, is heading to the Giro.

Geraint Thomas, who won the Tour in 2018, is not nailed on to be part of the team, and might have to go as a domestique.

“I can’t see anyone [winning other than Pogačar], and as much as I’d like Geraint to win a second Tour, with the momentum he’s gaining with two Tour wins and dominance," Wiggins told the media at Discovery's year of cycling launch on Monday.

"Other than a crash you can’t see anyone dismantling him other than [Primož] Roglič. I can’t see Ineos, other than Pidcock if he wants to throw his name in, if he wants to go down that road."

Wiggins conceded that he "might have struggled" against the Slovenian, even in his 2012-winning form, where his biggest threat appeared to be his teammate Chris Froome. He won two time trials on the way to victory, and beat Froome by 3:21 in Paris.

Last year, Pogačar won a time trial and two mountain stages as he won by over five minutes.

"He is a great time trialist and he would have out-climbed me," Wiggins said. "He’s got that youthful exuberance where he’s got that naivety around him where does not really realize what he’s achieving.

“He’s willing to take risks and attack far from the finish and by the time I won the Tour de France, I was past that. I was becoming a bit of an old git and I had to be calculating and measure my efforts.

“At Sky we rode to my strengths. Had we done that, I think Pogačar would have attacked over the top and made it very difficult for us,” Wiggins said. “It would have been very difficult to challenge him and the other thing that we could have done, and I’m surprised Dave hasn’t done is throw a load of money at him, buy him, and send him to the Giro d’Italia.”

Despite the enormous resources of Ineos, the team is yet to find a way to tackle Pogačar, and Roglič to an extent.

“It’s very difficult and whatever plan you come at you can’t trump talent with money,” Wiggins said. “And as Pogačar has proved, when the road goes uphill his extremities as an athlete are so special. We say these riders come along once in a generation but there seems to be a lot in this generation."

Wiggins is a Discovery Cycling Expert for Discovery and GCN+, and is speaking at “Discovery’s Year of Cycling Launch.” Watch live racing and original cycling documentaries on GCN+.

Bradley Wiggins has opened up about regrets he has from his cycling career, admitting that he struggled to handle the fame that his success brought. 

Speaking on the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club podcast, the 2012 Tour de France winner details how he dealt with becoming a household name, ultimately leading to him portraying a public persona he isn't proud of. 

"I didn’t appreciate [the success]," Wiggins said

"I ended up playing a character, I had this veil of playing a rock star. I think it was a good disguise to walk through life like that, and the fame and adulation, I couldn’t handle that as me. I wasn’t good at taking praise.

“I handled it a certain way and be quite shocking and contentious and sweary. I’d get drunk at things in order to perform and play the fool. That didn’t serve me well long term as it built up a perception of me - the impact it had on the kids, and keep up this image of Bradley Wiggins, really strong, Tour de France winner.

"Particularly towards the end of Sky, I was quite lonely. I used to just room on my own, wasn’t enjoying it, just ticking boxes. It was more for everyone else at that point, everything after 2012, I never really enjoyed anything after that again.”

Wiggins continued, discussing the reasons for why he struggled to come to terms with his newfound fame after becoming the first Briton to win the Tour de France. The 41-year-old suggests that he never managed to comprehend experiences from his childhood, leading to the character he previously mentioned.

“It probably stems from my childhood really. A lot of trauma I experienced in childhood, I witnessed a murder when I was 15. I never really accepted that. My head teacher got stabbed, Phillip Lawrence, outside of St George’s School - affected how I was as an adult. 

"My dad got murdered in 2008. It [all] affected me into adulthood, when I had my own kids, I was never good at handling public fame and adulation."

Wiggins' estranged dad Gary, also a professional cyclist, died in his native Australia after he was struck in the back of the head, potentially during a fight. No-one has ever been charged with his death. 

Furthermore, Wiggins highlights another regret from his career: his contentious relationship with former team-mate Chris Froome.

“The whole fall out with Chris Froome was really regrettable. I impacted on that a lot, the way I behaved. It’s just been really nice to make peace with all those people since then. Me and Froome met up for the first time actually at the Tour this year, at a night club towards the end. We hugged it out. I speak to him a lot now, and… it’s really liberating to go back and behave like you should have been behaving really.”

The pair fell out during the 2012 Tour de France, after Wiggins felt that Froome had attempted to go against team orders and attack for the race victory instead. There was also the subsequent infamous Twitter spat between the pair's respective partners. However, Wiggins' latest admission clearly shows he isn't proud of the episode in their relationship, something he has rectified in recent times. 

Wiggins also looks back on leaving Team Sky in 2015 with dissatisfaction, claiming he could've handled the event a lot better than he did. 

>>> Tom Pidcock returns to training after lingering knee injury and posts ride on Strava

“Cycling is so consuming. It’s quite childish and petulant how I handled situations but that just stemmed from not knowing how to cope with things. It impacted on the relationships around me. I sort of left Sky on bad terms really, which I regretted because I was the maker of that myself.”

Sir Bradley Wiggins has said he doesn’t like to be defined as a cyclist, as he hopes to retrain as a doctor.

Wiggins, the first British Tour de France winner, has revealed he wants to become medical doctor to “redefine himself.” 

The 41-year-old is part of the punditry and commentary team at GCN and Eurosport for the Grand Tours, but says he has realised “there’s more to life than cycling.”

In a slightly unusual interview with The Times newspaper, Wiggins said: “I don’t like being defined as a cyclist any more.

‘I’d like to become a doctor and redefine myself. I haven’t ridden a bike for five years so I’m not a cyclist.” 

Wiggins’s claim that he hasn’t ridden a bike in five years is slightly contradicted by a recent Instagram post of him riding in the new Oakley Kato glasses. 

On his punditry role, which he will continue with Eurosport at the Tokyo Olympics this summer, Wiggins said he is still a fan of cycling but that he has realised there is more to life than the sport. 

Wiggins previously said he wanted to train to be a social worker, but says he is now enrolled in a distance learning course to become a doctor. 

The former Team Sky rider was also asked his opinion on Dr Richard Freeman’s medical tribunal, after Freeman was struck off the medical register for ordering banned testosterone to British Cycling headquarters in 2011. 

Freeman, a former Team Sky and British Cycling doctor, is appealing the decision to remove him from the medical register. 

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Wiggins said: “It’s the same old thing, we’re no further forward than we were two years ago. We don’t know anything more. The whole thing is very bizarre. 

“I’m just a rider, I don’t know [who to go to for answers]. If you go to your GP like Harold Shipman and he kills your mum, who do you go to after that? The whole thing is baffling and complete incompetence at the highest f***ing level. I can’t get my head round it.”  

Sir Bradley Wiggins says he hopes Mark Cavendish gets a “just reward” after returning to winning ways. 

British sprinting star Cavendish made an emotional return to the top step of the podium at the Tour of Turkey last month, dominating the sprint stages after a three-year drought. 

Wiggins, a former team-mate of Cavendish both on the road and the track, celebrated Cavendish’s along with much of the cycling world, saying “it’s where he should be.” 

The retired Tour de France winner Wiggins, now a pundit for GCN, told Cycling Weekly: “What a contrast to [Cavendish] crying at the end Ghent-Wevelgem last year.

"It's where he should be, seeing that smile back on his face. 

“Yes it's only the Tour of Turkey but Cav's a winner. And whatever the race, just seeing him throwing his arms onto the air is superb. 

“I just hope he gets the just reward for the work he's put in because that's the result of a lot of hard work and sacrifice and challenges along the way.”

Cavendish has battled through a tough few years in the peloton, struggling with illness, injury, and the threat of early retirement at the end of 2020 as he struggled to find a new contract.

But after leaving Bahrain-McLaren after just one season to join his old team Deceuninck - Quick-Step, it didn’t take long for Cavendish to hit the top step, winning stage two in Turkey and following up with three more victories, coming away with 50 per cent of the stages.

Prior to that race, Cavendish hadn’t won since February 2018  when he won a stage of the Dubai Tour. 

On why Cavendish may have struggled for victories in recent seasons, Wiggins said: “The first thing that goes as you get older is your speed really, there's a lot of young fast bike riders coming through the last few years, I don't think he's also been in the right team.

“I think he's back at somewhere where he feels comfortable and home at Quick-Step.  He just looks a happier athlete and when you're happy, that tends to be reflected in your performances.” 

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Wiggins is currently offering up his expertise for GCN during the Giro d’italia.

With GCN+ you can watch every km of the Giro live and ad free. For more details visit https://welcome.globalcyclingnetwork.com/giro. 

Fans can enjoy the racing with expert analysis from the likes of Wiggins, Sean Kelly and Brian Smith.  

Sir Bradley Wiggins believes Simon Yates will take home the 2021 Giro d’Italia title, saying his “no nonsense attitude” will carry the Brit to victory.

Yates is chasing a second Grand Tour career victory to follow up on his 2018 Vuelta a España win, as the Giro kicks off in Turin on Saturday (May 8).

The 28-year-old came within days of victory in the Giro in 2018, before he dramatically fell out of contention in the final week.

Wiggins, the first British winner of the Tour de France, believes Yates is the man to take home the maglia rosa this year, making him the third British winner of Giro.

Former pro and now GCN presenter Wiggins told Cycling Weekly: “I just think I think Simon still has that air of strength about him in his no nonsense attitude, the way he gets on with things. He's not a big talker. He doesn't sort of shout from the rooftops about what he's going to do.” 

Yates, winner of the Tour of the Alps, faces some tough competition in Italy, most notably from bookies’ favourite Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), who has flown under the radar so far this year.

But Bernal has been dealing with back problems that hampered his 2020 season, which Wiggins feels may have knocked his confidence following his Tour de France win back in 2019. 

Wiggins said: “I think he’s lost that invincibility a little bit through his back problems last year.

“There was a period where whenever he went into a race he was the favourite for it.”

Wiggins added that Bernal was once the outright Tour de France leader for Ineos, but has since fallen down the order: “It shows that there's, there's an air of uncertainty around this form and fragility as well.” 

The 2021 Giro d’Italia start list is also stacked with British talent, as Yates is joined by the likes of GC contender Hugh Carthy (EF Pro Cycling) and climber James Knox (Deceuninck - Quick-Step). 

>>> Giro d’Italia 2021 route: Tough gravel stage, Monte Zoncolan summit finish and final time trial in Milan for 104th edition  

On the current wave of British talent, Wiggins said: “It’s brilliant and it’s a marker of where the sport is now. We’re blessed with so many great riders, all great personalities in their own right.” 

With GCN+ you can watch every km of the Giro live and ad free. For more details visit https://welcome.globalcyclingnetwork.com/giro  

Wiggins will be on hand throughout the Giro to offer more of his insight and analysis. 

Sir Bradley Wiggins says Chris Froome “warrants a bit more respect” as he continues his comeback from career-threatening injuries.

Froome, now racing for Israel Start-Up Nation, has been racing and training towards his goal of winning a fifth Tour de France title, having returned from a serious broken leg in the 2019 season.

Following is awful crash in the 2019 Critérium du Dauphiné, Froome returned to racing last season before switching teams from Ineos Grenadiers in 2021. 

This year, Froome has raced the UAE Tour and the Volta a Catalunya, but has not yet shown signs of having Tour-winning form. 

In the latest episode of The Bradley Wiggins Show Podcast, hosted by Eurosport, Froome’s former team-mate and Tour de France winner Wiggins said: “I wouldn’t say I fear for him, but with every week that goes by, and every race that goes by, it’s becoming less likely that we’re going to see a Chris Froome at this year’s Tour de France that is capable of winning in the old manner.

“I do think he warrants a bit more respect. Let’s give him a break, because he’s come back from something - if anything we should celebrate.

“It’s good to see him back in the peloton.” 

After returning to racing in 2020, Froome then rode his first Grand Tour since his 2019 crash, finishing 98th in the Vuelta a España. 

Since then, Froome underwent an intensive training programme in California during the winter and now has 14 race days under his belt this season.

But his best result was 22nd place on stage four of the UAE Tour, while he never finished better than 51st in the Volta a Catalunya, where his old team Ineos dominated the standings with Adam Yates taking victory, while Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas finished second and third overall. 

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Wiggins added: "It must be a strange feeling for him being on the receiving end of perhaps an even stronger unit of Ineos than when he was there. 

“I thought the Vuelta last year was a really good step up the ladder in terms of getting back to the old Chris Froome. I thought he might have been a little bit further ahead of where he’s at, certainly a top-10 performance [in Catalunya] around that Hugh Carthy sort of region.”  

Sir Bradley Wiggins has thrown buckets of praise at Ineos Grenadiers after they dominated the recent Volta a Catalunya, taking all three spots on the podium with Adam Yates taking the overall title.

Ineos Grenadiers showed that they have huge strength in depth at the Volta a Catalunya, not only by taking the overall as well as second and third, but also by winning two stage at the seven-day Spanish stage-race.

>>> Five things we learned from the Volta a Catalunya 2021

Wiggins heaped the praise on his former team in his podcast for Eurosport where he said: "They made a statement with the team they selected.

"Adam [Yates] has now come of age, it is fair to say, within that team. He has always been very consistent, but he has now come of age.

"Probably the icing on the cake [for Yates] was going to Ineos, really. It's the perfect team for him. Adam is the next British star and these are the early stages."

The opening stage in Catalunya saw the British super-team sit back and let other teams work before the stage two time trial, where they managed to get four riders in the top ten on the day, including the stage win with Rohan Dennis.

Yates didn't take the jersey until stage three when he attacked clear of everyone else on the summit finish, dropping the likes of his brother, Simon, as well as Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic), Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) and many more to take the lead by 45 seconds over his team-mate, Richie Porte.

After that is was back to the old style of racing for Ineos who controlled every bit of each stage, not allowing time gaps to stretch and even getting Geraint Thomas onto the podium at just 49 seconds down.

Thomas' former team-mate, Wiggins, was very pleased with the Welshman's performance: "G [Thomas] needed a performance and he showed that. It wasn't about winning for him, it was about the Tour de France

"He looked every bit the G, even without winning, that he did a few years ago when he won the Tour and he will be a real threat this year.

"That performance from Geraint has cemented his leadership for the Tour, because he has shared out the spoils and everything is on track."

The only potential disappointment for the team was that 2019 Giro d'Italia winner, Richard Carapaz, finished down in 21st place at 7-27 down on Yates. While this was the Ecuadorian's first race back after a huge altitude training camp back in Ecuador, he may have expected better things.

Adam Yates is next expected to race at the GP Miguel Indurain this Saturday (April 3) alongside Carapaz as well as last year's Giro winner, Tao Geoghegan Hart.

Bradley Wiggins has said the Dr Richard Freeman case "stinks to high heaven", and that although he doesn't believe the order of the banned Testogel was for a rider, that a further investigation is necessary to uncover exactly what happened in order to remove the "cloud hanging over" the whole scandal.

"The whole think stinks to high heaven. It's been ten years now but it wants looking into further. Yes he's been found guilty and it falls on his head but who else's head does it fall on? Now, can we look into it a bit further and ask 'what exactly happened? Someone must know?'" Wiggins said on his Eurosport podcast.

Ineos Grenadiers have denied any wrongdoing, while British Cycling said it has found the entire episode "extremely disturbing" and will leave any further action to UK Anti-Doping.

Wiggins added: "Because otherwise, the duty of care...you know my son is in there with British Cycling at the moment, is this sort of stuff going on? 'Oh sh*t, accidentally a whole load of testosterone's come in' and no-one knows...you're jeopardising your duty of care towards athletes, peoples' kids, peoples' husbands and wives.

"The people that are in there in this GB system that we've got that's won medals with all this public money...it's not good enough."

>>> ‘Until this is cleared up all those involved shouldn’t be near the sport’: MP calls for Ineos to suspend Dave Brailsford

Wiggins also says he doesn't believe the banned Testogel was for a rider, a belief shared by  Ineos Grenadiers in their official statement on the matter, as there was so much testing going on in the early 2010s.

"Who the bloody hell were [the 30 sachets of Testogel] for?" Wiggins continued. "I don't think for one minute they were for any rider, at all. I don't think that was the type of system that was run. Of course, that leaves this cloud hanging over it because it makes a bloody good story as well.

"I don't know anyone in their right mind who would have used that for doping in that particular period, particularly with the amount of testing in that time, the blood passport, in-house testing, out-of-competition if you lived in the UK with UKAD, we tallied it up earlier and I was probably tested 56 times that year. And I was winning a few races and stuff which puts you in more stringent testing.

"Yes we know it was Testogel, there's nothing new there, but what needs to happen now is alleviate this assumption that it must have been for a rider. Well not necessarily, it might have been for a staff member, might have been for a female athlete, might have been for someone in another sport."

As for where the scandal goes from here, Wiggins argues that the guilty verdict doesn't necessarily tell us anything new, but that a new investigation is needed to get to the bottom of why the banned substance was in the British Cycling and Team Sky HQ in the first place.

"The pharmaceutical company had clarified that they'd sent [the Testogel], as far as I'm aware there was Steve Peters up at the box who said 'what the hell's this doing here?' and then there was a sort of breakdown or loss of evidence or facts or line of communication that got sent back. And then the whole barrel of different explanations after that.

"There's something going on, someone knows something and I don't quite know what's going on. But it needs a follow-up now, we've waited all this time for a guilty verdict but we knew that already. This whole thing about the charge that it's for a rider. A) I don't think anyone was in the game of doing sh*t like that or B) was stupid enough, you'd get caught the number of times you were tested.

"If they were aware of someone, someone in Team Sky, then that should have been acted upon, because they would have seen it with in-house testing, why else have in-house testing? The whole thing of zero tolerance on drugs...but it's left this now where there's no actual conclusion...there's the guilty charge with a side-piece of 'maybe it was to dope a rider', well I don't think so to be honest, but that's the way it looks and I understand that. But rather than just leave it can we get to the bottom of it. I mean should have another investigation, and I think that's probably the way to do it."

Sir Bradley Wiggins still believes Chris Froome can win a fifth Tour de France title.

Froome, a four-time winner of the Tour, is embarking on a new step in his career with Israel Start-Up Nation, as he continues to fight back after serious injuries suffered during the 2019 season. 

The 35-year-old made his debut in ISN colours at the UAE Tour last month, where he wasn’t able to contest for stage victory or the overall title, but did say “things are hopefully coming together.” 

Froome's former team-mate at Team Sky Wiggins, speaking on his Eurosport podcast The Bradley Wiggins Show, said: “He is capable of a fifth [Tour de France], definitely. The regaining of the confidence and his physical condition this year.” 

The winner of the 2012 Tour de France, and the first ever British Tour winner, added: “We’re probably going to have to see a bit more from him than we have up to this point, a bit more of a performance.

“I’m still not going to underestimate him, the minute you underestimate Chris Froome is the day that you pay for it.” 

Froome has been working his way back to fitness after suffering multiple serious injuries during a crash at the 2019 Critérium du Dauphiné, which left him with a broken femur. 

After making his racing comeback in 2020, Froome has since left Ineos Grenadiers after a decade of dominating Grand Tours, to join Israeli WorldTour squad ISN.

Froome spent the winter training in California and working with experts at the Red Bull High Performance Centre, addressing a power imbalance between his legs left over from the injuries. 

He then returned to the peloton in 2020 in the Middle East, where he struggled on his first summit finish of the year to Jebel Hafeet, but then finished within two minutes of the leaders on the second mountain of the UAE Tour, Jebel Jais. 

Froome said at the time: “For me personally I’m feeling better and better as the race goes on. I think I definitely need more of these kind of race stages, but step-by-step things are things are hopefully coming together for me.”  

>>> Five things to look out for at Tirreno-Adriatico 2021 

The Brit has three more stage races on his schedule before the UAE Tour, as he due to head to spain for the Volta a Catalunya later this month, before racing the Tour de Romandie in April and the Dauphine in June. 

Small business owner, Shea Gribbon, received a pleasant surprise when he spotted the first British winner of the Tour de France, Sir Bradley Wiggins, wearing his company's kit in an Instagram picture.

Gribbon, 24, started up a company called The Shoe Dr, which offers bespoke shoe customisation and has already supplied WorldTour rider Harry Tanfield with his own special design.

With each piece of work, Gribbon throws in a pair of socks and one such order went to Wiggins' son last year.

He said: "Bradley happened to pull on the pair of socks I sent to his son before going out for a run one morning and shared a picture of himself on social media wearing them.

"That was pretty cool to see, and proved to be great promotion for my business."

Based in Northern Ireland, Gribbon offers customised designs on cycling shoes, football boots and sneakers, while also repairing, refurbishing and cleaning shoes.

Gribbon was the person responsible for hand painting Harry Tanfield's personalised Yorkshire shoes that he wore during the time trial at the Vuelta a España 2020

As his shoes are proving so popular Gribbon, a product design graduate from Coventry University, quit his day job to completely focus on his shoe company which had grown in his first year and a half thanks to various professional riders wearing his work.

He thanked his university for helping him get this far: "I use many of the skills I learned and mastered at uni every day, from computer aided design, to Photoshop and model making.

“I loved my time at Coventry University, and my advice to those who are still studying is to enjoy the course and absorb as much as you can.

"Be open minded about jobs, you have so much time to explore and try things. And if you have a side hustle you’ve been working on, give it a shot and grow it patiently without thinking about the money."

Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins has seen a third company in his stable of businesses enter liquidation with debts of £141,000.

Wiggins wound-up two of his other companies with debts of over £1m in October. 

The latest company is 101 Ride Limited, which effectively sits between the other two companies in the Wiggins business hierarchy. It is wholly owned by Wiggins Rights Limited, which is controlled by Bradley Wiggins. Wiggins himself is not a director of 101 Ride, the sole director of which is his estranged wife Catherine Wiggins.

A statement of affairs filed at Companies House shows that 101 Ride Limited owes £51,000 to solicitors firm Bray and Crais and a further £90,000 to a company called SponsorCom Limited, which is part of a wider marketing group called WPP and specialises in sports marketing.

The statement said some of these debts would likely be covered by £10,942.08 in an “accountant’s client account”. However, it said the recovery of £604,000 which 101 Ride appears to be owed by Bradley Wiggins’s two other companies was “uncertain”.

In October creditors to Wiggins’s other two companies were told that they were set to be left out of pocket as there was not enough money to cover the debts of over £1m.

Creditors to the companies, according to the statements of affairs filed at Companies House, include prominent cycling agent and management company Trinity, which has rafts of top name riders on its books; bike brand Pinarello and Vitus Pro Cycling rider Dan Tullett.

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A spokesperson for Bradley Wiggins declined to comment on the most recent liquidation. When previously asked for comment on the liquidation of the other related companies they said the closure of both businesses was “regretful” but that Wiggins’s involvement “was not on a day to day”.

The spokesperson added: “Experienced professionals were trusted to run both the financial and operational elements of the businesses. For clarity this in no way effects Bradley’s personal solvency.”

Bradley Wiggins has called the rider protest on stage 19 of the Giro d'Italia 2020 a "shambles" and that the professional made more of a stand against racing 258km in the rain than they did against racism at the recent Tour de France.

The former Tour de France winner gave his opinion on British Eurosport's live coverage of the Italian Grand Tour, saying as a rider he would have gone along with the refusal to ride the opening half of the stage, but that being a retired pro has given him perspective on the situation, saying it's a privilege for the riders to be racing the Giro d'Italia.

"The whole thing is just a shambles. I think everyone ends up looking pretty stupid," Wiggins said. "Obviously, I'm talking from the perspective of someone four to five years into retiring. Let's make it clear, back when I was a rider I would've been the first to not want to race in the race.

"But from the other side of the fence, I realise just how much of a privilege it is to be a pro cyclist. The riders are very fortunate and they deserve it, in terms of how much they get paid these days, and also the current climate around the world at the moment, cycling is very romantic and it's a passion and escapism for many people from the strain and pressure of daily life.

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"I think riders do have a responsibility to ride and that's why they're elite cyclists because it's doing something that normal people perceive themselves as being unable to do, something of this magnitude."

Wiggins says the whole episode shows the lack of unity amongst the riders, and that the CPA riders' union doesn't act like a union.

"I can see everybody's point. The rider's point – do we need a 258km stage the day after the Stelvio stage? The race organisers are happy to cut a day like [stage 20] down, which impacts on whether someone like Tao Geoghegan Hart can attack and win the race having dropped Wilco Kelderman yesterday – 'we don't want to cut this but we're happy to cut that'.

"The whole thing just shows the lack of unity, the lack of organisation and the lack of power the riders have as a group. The union doesn't act as a union – can we say 'willy waving contest' here?"

The 40-year-old elaborated on his point that being a professional cyclist is a privilege in today's world compared to other employment such as those working in healthcare and those who only ride their bikes for pleasure, adding the fact the Giro d'Italia is even able to take place this year should mean riders make the most of it.

"To ride your bike for 250km for six hours – if it's in the rain or not – it's a little bit disproportionate to what some people have to do, like the front line in the army, working in the NHS in the current climate.

"That's why I see this as a privilege. Lots of people sat in offices ride their bikes at weekends for passion and love for the sport, that's why people fall in love with this sport because of what these riders have to go through.

"We're lucky to have a Giro d’Italia this year. From that respect, make the most of it. We’ve seen what it’s like when there are no races."

Finally, Wiggins said the Giro peloton made more of a stand against racing stage 19 than they did against racism at the Tour de France, where some riders made a small gesture of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement by wearing "no to racism" masks while Kévin Reza, the only black rider in the race, rode alongside the yellow jersey at the front of the peloton.

"To add to that as well, they've made more of a stand today, more of a protest than they did for Kévin Reza and the stand against racism at the Tour de France. That's all I'll say on it," Wiggins concluded.

Adam Hansen, currently riding the Giro d'Italia for Lotto-Soudal and the riders' representative for the CPA union, clarified the situation from his point of view. "As many of you don't know there was a vote of 16 teams asked to shorten the stage due to many super early morning and long transfers (which we don't know about months before like everyone thinks we do, we find out only days before)," the 39-year-old said.

"Even though the choice to shorten the stage was not taken from those 16 teams, when I arrived the start line only had four riders there. The rest were under the tent out of the rain.

"They called me in and everyone in the tent was in favour to shorten the stage.

"Any rider wanting to start the race could have, but they all chose not to and remain under the tent until the official race time passed. So it was a collective, united choice."

The Giro d'Italia continues with stage 20, where the riders will climb the Sestriere three times before the final stage 21 time trial in Milan.

Two of Bradley Wiggins’s companies are being wound up with debts in excess of £1m and look set to leave creditors hundreds of thousands of pounds out of pocket.

Wiggins Rights Limited, the company used to “exploit Bradley Wiggins’s name and image rights”, has entered liquidation with debts in excess of £650,000 while a related company New Team Cycling Limited, which was used to run the now defunct Team Wiggins and lists Bradley Wiggins as a director, is also being liquidated with debts of £587,008.

Creditors to the companies, according to the statements of affairs filed at Companies House, include 101 Ride Limited, the parent company of the company that used to run Team Wiggins; prominent cycling agent and management company Trinity, which has rafts of top name riders on its books; bike brand Pinarello and Vitus Pro Cycling rider Dan Tullett. At least some of the creditors look set to be left out of pocket.

Wiggins Rights Limited is controlled by Bradley Wiggins with his wife Cath, whom he split from earlier this year, and his mother owning a one per cent share each.

That company has debts of £654,657 and the statement of affairs, signed by Cath, said it expects to get back only £600,695 from a directors loan of £760,373, issued years earlier. The statement of affairs said it expected the creditors to the company to be left £53,962 out of pocket as the recovery of other book debts was “uncertain”. 

The statement of affairs of the company shows that 101 Ride Limited, which is a company controlled by Wiggins Rights Limited and in turn owns New Team Cycling limited, which was used to run the now-defunct Team Wiggins, is one of the biggest creditors and is owed £238,000. Wiggins Rights Limited also owes £29,000 directly to New Team Cycling.

The biggest creditor to Wiggins Rights Limited is HM Revenue and Customs, which is owed £272,360.

The rest of the company’s debts are to accountancy firms and lawyers and total just over £115,000.

New Team Cycling Limited, which lists Cath and Bradley Wiggins as its directors, owes its creditors a total of £587,008 and, according to the statement of affairs, they look set to get nothing.

The single biggest creditor is its parent 101 Ride Limited, which is owed £366,000.

It also owes HM Revenue and Customs £57,344 and Trinity Sports Management £81,621. Trinity is one of the biggest management companies in cycling and its clients include Ian Stannard, Nicolas Roche, and Simon Yates among others. It also oversaw the running of Team Wiggins during its lifetime. 

New Team Cycling Limited also owes £16,710.63 to bike brand Pinarello. The Italian marquee supplied the bikes to Team Wiggins throughout its lifetime from 2015 to 2019, though it’s not clear if that is what the debt relates to.

Among the other creditors is Vitus Pro Cycling rider Dan Tullett, who rode for Team Wiggins in 2019, who is owed £583 and Yellow Jersey Insurance, which is owed £7,237.14.

A spokesperson for Bradley Wiggins said the closure of both businesses was “regretful” but that Wiggins’s involvement “was not on a day to day”. 

He added: “Experienced professionals were trusted to run both the financial and operational elements of the businesses. It must also be made clear that an investigation into lost assets is still underway. For clarity this in no way effects Bradley’s personal solvency.”

Andrew McQuaid, director of Trinity, said he was “proud of Team Wiggins’s successes over the years”. He added: “If there is an investigation into missing assets that’s the first I’ve heard of it, no one has ever spoken to me about that.”

Dan Tullett was unavailable for comment.

In July this year the High Court in London dismissed a bankruptcy petition brought against Wiggins by HMRC with the consent of the tax man. A report in the Daily Mail at the time said his lawyers and HMRC had met to work out a solution to his financial difficulties.

Bradley Wiggins says Mark Cavendish deserves a much better send-off than crying after Ghent-Wevelgem and has urged Ineos boss Dave Brailsford to sign him for next year.

"Mark’s like my little brother, I love him. It’s not nice watching him cry on the telly like that," Wiggins said in the latest episode of his podcast, The Bradley Wiggins Show.

"For someone who’s done so much in the sport, world champion, Milan San-Remo winner, 30-odd stages of the Tour, being one of the people who catapulted cycling to where it is in this country. For someone like that to have to exit a sport that he loves and thrives on like this, through other people’s decisions…you always want to have an element of control when you leave the sport.

"Part of me thinks he deserves far more. I understand that there are financial implications in teams, but someone, somewhere, should stand up and go ‘this guy deserves a far better send-off than crying at the end of Ghent Wevelgem’. And it’s not with a victory, but just with the respect that he deserves."

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Cavendish struggled to keep it together during an interview after the finish of Ghent-Wevelgem 2020, emotional as he told his interviewer that he had maybe just raced the last race of his career.

"I wouldn’t imagine it would be about money or anything about that," Wiggins continued. "Just sign the ****ing guy," before adding that Cavendish has transcended the sport.

"We were like Ant and Dec me and him in the day. Cav and Wiggo. And with the season we’ve had it’s very difficult I know, but he would race until he’s 45 if he could."

Wiggins says Cavendish should be able to stop when he himself decides and has urged for Ineos boss Dave Brailsford to bring the sprinter back to the team he rode for in 2012, winning the Tour de France Champs-Élysées sprint on stage 21 in the rainbow bands, being led out by Bradley Wiggins in the yellow jersey.

"Give him another year," Wiggins said. "Say it’s his last year, and everywhere he goes he’s feted. You don’t let people leave the sport like that. All great sportsmen get to leave in their own way, and I don’t like seeing him drift off like that.

"I’m worried he won’t get what he deserves because it is the way it is and it’s full of ****s and someone’s got to step in. Brailsford, come on! Sign him for Ineos for another year."

Bradley Wiggins has backed Geraint Thomas to win a second Tour de France, claiming the 2018 victor is the clear frontrunner within Team Ineos.

Britain's first ever winner of the yellow jersey reiterated his belief from several months ago that the lockdowns experienced around the world would have benefited Thomas who enjoys training.

With less than four weeks to go until the rescheduled Tour, Wiggins thinks that Thomas will be given eventual leadership in the Ineos team.

In last year's Tour, Thomas was favourite to repeat his success, but his young teammate Egan Bernal eventually won, with the Welshman placing second.

Speaking on his Eurosport podcast, Wiggins said: "Last year, Geraint Thomas was the defending champion at the Tour de France and Bernal was allowed to shine.

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"I think had we had the stage to Tignes completed last year, I think Bernal would have cracked and Geraint would have won the Tour that day.

"Now you’d have to say, because Bernal was allowed to win the Tour de France last year, with Geraint as defending champion, the same should apply the other way around this year and Bernal is not granted that automatic right to defend the race.

"So Geraint is open to win the race this year and I actually think Geraint will win the Tour de France this year, no question about it, I don’t think there is an argument within that team."

Wiggins believes Ineos' potential trio of Thomas, Bernal and Chris Froome could be unbeatable at the Tour, but Thomas should not focus the condensed calendar solely around his ambitions for a second yellow jersey.

The two-time Olympic team pursuit champion started his road career showing promise as a Classics rider and even won E3 Harelbeke in 2015.

Wiggins thinks that Thomas should concentrate on the northern Classics after the Tour. "The guys that can train, Bernal, G and Froome, I expect them to be in great condition when they start racing," Wiggins added.

"Even in races like Flanders, guys like Geraint Thomas, coming off the Tour de France, he could win Flanders, he’s the type of rider that can win Flanders.

"I’d love to see him Thomas step up in those races, imagine winning the Tour de France and coming out and winning Flanders or Paris-Roubaix afterwards, I’d love to see that.

"If a Geraint Thomas on top form is going for Flanders or Roubaix, he’s a better rider than Van Avermaet all day, as good as Greg is, on top form he’s just better."

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Wiggins also had his say on Froome's impending departure to Israel Start-Up Nation, assessing that the move is fraught with risk but ultimately feels like the correct decision.

"I knew he was thinking of changing teams, I think he needed to really, I think he’s got a lot more in the tank, if he wants it," he said.

"I don’t put anything past him, he can win another Tour, for me. I don’t know if he does want it, though, but by changing teams, that’s the biggest statement he’s made.

"I think, on his day, he could still surpass certainly Bernal and maybe Geraint. He’s got a fifth Tour de France in him, and he was obviously thinking whether he would ever get that opportunity again at Ineos.

"By changing teams, he has probably given himself the best chance to win that fifth Tour. I know they don’t make decisions lightly, Chris and his team, so he would have put a lot of thought in to it and it it’s a brave move because there is no certainty in it at all. I see it as such a positive thing, and he’s really looking to go for that fifth Tour de France."

Could he win a record-equalling fifth this September? "I would guess that Chris Froome won’t be at the level this year to win the Tour de France," Wiggins said.

"I think it might take another year of racing but who knows with Chris, I wouldn’t put anything past him. I think Chris will be the first in there to say he’s going to help his team mates, but for me it’s a two-pronged race for Ineos between Thomas and Bernal."

The first British Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins has backed Chris Froome to make a full comeback from his horror crash and claim a record-equalling fifth Tour title.

After crashing during the 2019 Critérium du Dauphiné, the Ineos rider is back on his bike just 10 weeks later, albeit only on the track, but says his goal is to fully recover in time for the 2020 Tour.

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Speaking on his Eurosport podcast, Wiggins said of Froome's hopeful return to racing: "I wouldn't put anything past him, I think he'll win another Tour. I wouldn't say it's a positive thing that happened, but this will probably be the driving force, the motivation he needs to come back."

With Froome having turned 34 in May, Wiggins compared the Brit's current plight to that of Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) a couple of years ago, the Spaniard breaking his knee cap in the stage one time trial at the 2017 Tour de France.

"I mean look at Valverde two years ago, he had a smashed knee and just over a year later he's world champion," said Wiggins. "We thought that was the end of his career, and the way riders come back nowadays...we were talking about Luke Rowe earlier, his injury was potentially career-ending, but riders seem to come back from these things now."

Lotto-Soudal's Adam Blythe, who appeared on the podcast alongside Wiggins, added praise for Ineos and how successful they are in rehabilitating injured riders.

"The thing about Luke [Rowe] is if he was in another team he wouldn't be where he is now I don't think, because Ineos are so good at finding the best of everything you need and that's why they are the best in the world," Blythe said.

"It's not about aero socks and all that, that's not a marginal gain. The marginal gain is saying to a rider 'right, you've crashed, let's fix you. Doesn't matter if it's eight months or takes two, we'll fix you, we'll sort you out.'"

Wiggins drew on his own personal experience of the Ineos set-up from his time with the team when they were sponsored by Sky.

"I remember in my last few years at Sky, Ben Swift, who's got glass shoulders, he had that horrendous crash, I watched this guy for two, three weeks at Mallorca at the training camp, sitting on the turbo trainer for three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon because he couldn't go out on the road.

"But the nature of Ineos, it's not just like 'get on it', they'll send two blokes with you for company and we're going to do this together. He's got that support, it's like a family."

With the signing of Giro d'Italia winner Richard Carapaz finally announced, Ineos will go into the 2020 season brimming with WorldTour winners. Alongside Carapaz and Froome, the British squad also boast the previous two Tour winners in Egan Bernal and Geraint Thomas.

The question of whether Froome will have to prove himself to be preferred ahead of his team-mates in the pecking order when it comes to Tour leadership is sure to be a talking point for the entirety of the early 2020 season. Wiggins said he thinks Froome has done enough in his career to have "earned the right" to be given a certain amount of leadership, but that at Ineos it's always a case of if you can post competitive numbers.

"I don't know [if Froome will be leader at the 2020 Tour], is the truth," said Wiggins. "When I was there it was just whoever is up to the task can do the job. And I think there was some doubt about Geraint coming into the Tour this year but Geraint got stronger throughout the Tour and could have won the Tour.

"You'd like to think that Froome has done enough for that team to earn the right to be given a certain amount of leadership but he will have to prove himself," Wiggins continued. "They'll know from his training numbers whether he's going to be good enough. It will all boil down to that."

Should Froome not be given leadership at any Grand Tour, Wiggins and Blythe said they thought it unlikely Froome would race in support of another rider, posing the question of Froome switching teams and going up against former team-mates Thomas and Bernal, in what would be a match-up many fans would love to see.

" I don't know what his long-term goals are," said Wiggins, "probably just concentrate on getting back to full health after the horrific crash. He will now find out in the next few months whether he'll be able to get back to the same level.

"We can't look too far ahead and say he'll be back at the Tour de France next year and in contention of winning but in the modern day of cycling I wouldn't put anything past anyone."

Sir Bradley Wiggins says Mark Cavendish ‘lives for the Tour de France after the British sprinter was dropped from this year’s race.

Cavendish, the winner of 30 Tour stages, was not selected by his Dimension Data squad for the 2019 race after struggling to reach the top step in recent seasons.

His friend and former team-mate Wiggins said Cavendish may have been in the form of his life heading into the Tour, but we’ll never know.

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Speaking on his podcast The Bradley Wiggins Show Podcast Presented by Eurosport, the 2012 Tour de France winner said: “I think one notable absence who we’ve become so used to seeing is Mark Cavendish.

“I felt for him last week when I heard the news. Mark lives for this race.

“I’ve known Mark a long time and I’ve not met another person who grafts as much as Mark. He really does put the work in.”

Dimension Data announced their Tour de France 2019 squad on the eve of the race, with Italian sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo and Brit Steve Cummings included but no Cavendish.

The team made no mention of the 34-year-old during the announcement, despite it being the first Tour Cavendish has missed since his debut in 2007.

Manxman Cavendish said he was “heartbroken” over the decision and that he felt he was in peak condition ready for the Tour, having recovered from a long battle against Epstein-Barr virus that has plagued him in recent season.

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Wiggins added: “Coming off the back of the illness last year he really wanted to make a statement this year at the Tour de France and if the rumours to be believed he was in the form of his life.

“We'll never know because he's not here but it is noticeable because for so many years this did become the Mark Cavendish show."

The decision by Dimension Data management to leave Cavendish at home has caused a rift inside the team, as general manager Doug Ryder said it had been a joint decision while performance director Rolf Aldag said he wanted to include Cavendish but was overruled.

Cavendish’s contract with Dimension Data ends this season. After the decision, it is uncertain if Cavendish will want to remain in Ryder’s team.

Sir Bradley Wiggins has made an exciting return to the Tour de France peloton, only this time from the back of a motorbike.

The winner of the 2012 Tour has got up close and personal with stage one of the 2019 edition following along on the race bike.

Wiggins, who retired from racing in 2016, will be following the race as part of his work with Eurosport where he has been an expert pundit.

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After offering analysis of the Giro d’Italia from the Eurosport studio earlier this year, Wiggins has got stuck in at the Tour as a motorbike reporter, offering his insight will pursuing the race on the back of a race bike.

https://twitter.com/search?q=wiggins&src=typd

On his new role at the Tour de France 2019, Wiggins said: “This is going to be a whole new experience for me and I’m really looking forward to it.

“I’m going to be right in the thick of things, giving fans something a little different. I think it’s going to be really exciting.”

The unexpected development has caused quite a stir in the cycling world, with the likes of Rally Cycling pro Abby Mickey sharing her excitement online.

She said: “Just watching the Tour on Eurosport and they’ve got Wiggins on a scooter on course doing commentary and I am THRILLED.”

Wiggins is part of a revamped team covering Grand Tours for Eurosport, which was launched at the 2019 Giro d’Italia.

Lead presenter Orla Chennaoui joined the channel this year, with regulars Brian Smith, Rob Hatch, Carlton Kirby and Sean Kelly also contributing.

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Eurosport’s senior director of production and broadcast, Jamie Steward, said: “We are continually exploring new innovations to provide further insight to the fan. Bradley’s new role will bring an extra element to our coverage and allow viewers to enjoy a truly immersive experience.

“We are committed to powering people’s passions and this couple with every stage broadcast live and in full will deliver our most comprehensive coverage ever.”

Jonathan Vaughters, the team boss of WorldTour outfit EF Education First, has said that Bradley Wiggins' 2012 Tour de France victory is "blemished" due to the revelation that the Brit had injections for triamcinolone, a corticosteroid, before his Grand Tour win.

Vaughters made these comments in an interview with The Times, as he promotes his autobiography that details his life, from racing with Lance Armstrong to setting up his own cycling team which now operates under the name EF Education First on the WorldTour circuit.

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When Vaughters set up Slipstream Sports, now the tie-dye American team that features talents such as Rigoberto Urán and Tejay van Garderen, Bradley Wiggins was one of their biggest signings as the team stepped up to WorldTour level in 2009, with the 46-year-old describing the Brit as "the most gifted athlete I have ever worked with".

However, after Wiggins finished fourth at the 2009 Tour, Team Sky wanted the Brit for their launch in 2010. Vaughters has accused Dave Brailsford of "poisoning Brad's mindset", with Wiggins then having "very little thought for anyone beyond himself".

"The situation with Brad was an absolute bully situation, with Dave and all those attorneys," Vaughters claims. "I felt I got picked up by my pants and thrown in the garbage can. I don't find that terribly forgivable."

Vaughters will travel with his American squad to the Tour de France in July, with their team leader Rigoberto Urán will be looking to improve on his 2017 performance, finishing a close second to Chris Froome (Ineos), only 54 seconds down on the four-time champion.

The American goes on to say that to be a successful racer "you have to some chip on your shoulder...they've all got something that pushes them over the point of reason" using Urán's own experiences as an example, "his father was shot on the streets of Medellín when he was 14."