Scandal starts to bite for Bradley Wiggins; snubbed by Tour de Yorkshire
Controversy fuelled by his refusal to comment, beyond minimal remarks, hits Bradley Wiggins at home.
Having been under immense pressure of late over his medical practices while a rider, it appears the scandal around Bradley Wiggins is starting to bite.
Team Wiggins, which is owned by the 2012 Tour de France winner, has not been invited to the Tour de Yorkshire, from April 28th to 30th.
The exclusion of a team owned by and bearing the name of Britain’s most decorated Olympian and the first British rider to win the Tour would have been unthinkable before now.
The Tour de Yorkshire has said there were six applicants from British Continental-level teams for the five places available to them on the race.
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They have said one of the teams simply had to miss out and that Team Wiggins was welcome to apply in the future.
However, the team’s omission this year seems convenient because if Wiggins was on the race with the team his presence would have likely overshadowed the racing.
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Simon Cope, the former British Cycling coach who took the infamous jiffy bag to Team Sky in France in 2011, is also the manager of Team Wiggins.
The British media would likely have sought him out at every opportunity on the Tour de Yorkshire resulting in adverse publicity.
Team Sky has said the bag Cope brought to France contained a decongestant for Wiggins but has been unable to furnish documents to prove it.
"Good or bad press, people want to see Wiggins"
Bradley Wiggins has also been under media scrutiny since details of his therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) were leaked last autumn.
They showed he had been granted TUEs for corticosteroids before the Tour in 2011 and 2012 and before the Giro d’Italia in 2013.
“It’s very disappointing and it is very much a surprise. I don’t really know why. It’s a very strange one,” Cope told Cycling Weekly of the team’s non selection for Yorkshire.
“I do feel that with the riders we have got, we would have been a top-10 contender in the GC, all things going well
“Good or bad press at the moment, there’s a percentage of the UK population who will be going to the race who want to see Wiggins there.
“You would have thought that we would have got in, but the organisers have made their selection and that’s it, we can’t do anything about it. We will have to go and find another bike race to do.”
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