David Walsh apologises for his story accusing Irish fans on Alpe d'Huez. Well, sort of

*Irish journalist David Walsh (right) with Sky ProCycling boss Dave Brailsford on the 2013 Tour. Walsh was embedded with the team around that time, giving them a clear bill of health relating to doping*

The Sunday Times journalist David Walsh has issued an apology for his comments about Irish fans who gathered on Alpe d'Huez last Thursday to watch the Tour de France and cheer the riders as they passed.

Walsh's apology comes after stickybottle ran an article highlighting his comments - which appeared within a substantial two-page spread on Team Sky and Chris Froome in last Sunday's edition of The Sunday Times.

We then published a piece based on speaking to fans who were on Alpe d'Huez, with every person we spoke to saying Walsh wrongly attributed bad behaviour by French fans to the Irish crowd on Irish Corner 10.

And we also ran a piece based on a statement to us from four Lakeside Wheelers riders who flatly denied Walsh's assertion in his column last week that the Mullingar men had apologised to Team Sky's principal Dave Brailsford the day after the Alpe d'Huez stage.

Walsh's apology this evening was made on Twitter, though is perhaps not the most fulsome apology ever.

We'd like to see him address last Sunday's comments in his column in the paper this coming Sunday as we feel he should apologise in the paper for remarks that were after all made in the paper and not on Twitter.

If you agree with us, go onto @sticky_bottle and have a look at our Tweet relating to Walsh that we posted this evening, Thursday. It's already been retweeted by a huge number of people. Having said all that, we've no wish to hound him; everyone makes mistakes.