Sir Bradley Wiggins believes that he is one of very few riders to have won the Tour De France without having doped.
Lance Armstrong, who was stripped by Tour De France organisers ASO of his seven wins, is the most famous case and speaking at the Team Sky's winter base in Mallorca, Wiggins said: “It is quite rare in cycling. “There aren’t many Tour winners with no [doping] history. You can count them on one hand."
The winner of the 2012 race and the first British rider to win the race which will have its 101st edition in July, starting in Leeds, added: “It’s a very small club, and it gives you a responsibility, in a way, to preach that to the world. “As a Tour winner with credibility, with no history, no skeletons in the closet, people are inspired by that.”
Wiggins told the Press Association: That [Tour win] changed everything. "I left home pretty much unknown and came home the most famous man in the country for that week.
"It was hard for me and the family. It affected them as well. The Lance Armstrong thing in January... my kids started getting harassed at school. 'Is your dad on drugs? He won the Tour. Is he the same as Lance Armstrong?'
"Horrendous stuff. Horrible. My son getting bullied at school. I had to move my kids from that school and move them to another school.
"I felt responsible for that and it all added to my unhappiness at the time. But a year on, it feels like a complete contrast. I feel much more comfortable in my own shoes now."
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