Bradley Wiggins says Lance Armstrong was singled out. Wiggins added when he was a Team Sky rider he was controlled like a robot and couldn't use his brain.
Lance Armstrong was singled out for doping and whether people like it or not he is still an iconic figure, Bradley Wiggins has said.
In unguarded remarks on the TalkSport radio show in Britain, Wiggins said Armstrong inspired him as a kid.
He said when he was aged 13 and Armstrong, eight years his senior, won the Worlds he, Wiggins, was inspired by that.
And now that he had finished racing and was not being controlled by Team Sky he felt freer and more able to comment.
"I see it more from the human side now. It is what it is,” Bradley Wiggins said of his views now compared to having described Armstrong’s as a “lying bastard” before.
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At the time he used those words, in 2013, Wiggins said he was like a robot that was being controlled by Team Sky.
“So much goes on in the world anyway, and there are so many bad things with this that or the other. Lance has paid the price heavily for what he's done.
“Okay, the sport has suffered, but he wasn't alone in that. I think he's been singled out as well."
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Wiggins said when he watched Lance Armstrong win the Worlds in Oslo as a 21-year-old, above, he was inspired by it.
Wiggins continued: "I have an opinion on it and not everyone is going to like it. But I've moved on now and I can see the world from a different perspective and it's not just cycling.
“Yes, cycling has been damaged, but there are a lot of people to blame for that. There's been a lot of corruption in the sport in the past, with the way it's been run."
Wiggins said while he would not describe Armstrong as a friend, they keep in touch and there was a mutual respect.
"When I was 13 and I was living on a council state in London, he won the world title in Oslo when he was 21. And I was enthralled by it,” Wiggins explained.
“I went out on my bike the next day and I thought I was Lance Armstrong. I went as far as I could go before I realised I'd better turn round before it got dark.
“Nobody can ever take that away from me, that feeling of freedom and going out on the bike and being inspired by him.”
Wiggins also said when he was in the middle of his cycling career he did not feel free or able to speak his mind. Furthermore, Team Sky controlled him with its own agenda.
"I see people on telly who just want to please and appease people asking them the questions. And you can get drawn into it. I got drawn into it.
“And you sit there and end up telling people what they want hear so you can get on with your life and get on with riding your bike.
"I'm not in that position anymore, I say what I think now, I don't have key messages, I don't have an agenda-led cycling team to keep happy.
“I haven't got a team of PR people around me saying ‘oh no, you don't want to say that because it's going to look bad'.
“I ain't got to come out of the bus at the next race and face a line of journalists saying 'you know what you said last week about this - can we just pick up on that?'"
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