Bradley Wiggins seems gravely serious and under pressure during his TV interview with the BBC.
Having endured 10 days of perhaps the most damaging media coverage of his career, despite not having broken any rules, Bradley Wiggins has finally decided to speak out publicly.
The first British rider to win the Tour de France and five-time Olympic gold medallist is set to appear on the Andrew Marr TV show on BBC on Sunday at 9am.
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His interview, which has already been recorded, will be broadcast almost two weeks after details of his therapeutic use exemptions were leaked online.
They emerged along with former Team Sky team mate Chris Froome and a host of other sports stars.
The details of Froome’s TUEs were already public knowledge.
By discussing them in the past and also saying last week he had no issue with his details being leaked after WADA’s TUE database was hacked he has escaped any significant damage to his reputation.
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Coming this weekend exclusively on #marr - @OfficialWIGGINS tells @AndrewMarr9 why he took triamcinolone. BBC1 9am, Sunday. pic.twitter.com/pjdqmYuqdg
— Rob Burley (@RobBurl) September 23, 2016
However, Wiggins incredibly has only communicated with the media and the public via an unnamed spokesperson.
His inability and/or unwillingness to get out in the media in person appears to have been a very bad decision.
It has only served to deepen the controversy and seen the debate about him framed without his control or any real input.
Wiggins also said in his book ‘My Time’ – about his 2012 Tour win and published in late 2012 – that he had never had injections apart from vaccines and dehydration drips.
However, the TUE details leaked by the Russian hacking team ‘Fancy Bears’ shows he took triamcinolone acetonide, to treat hayfever, via intramuscular injection, three times while riding for Team Sky; before the Tour de France in both 2011 and 2012 and before the Giro in 2013.
It must be noted that Wiggins had applied for the TUEs and they were granted via the proper channels meaning there is no allegation that he broke any rules.
However, with three of the TUEs coming immediately before Grand Tours he was targeting, his integrity has been questioned even if he has not broken the rules.
His case has not been helped by Team Sky having taken a lofty stand on the ethics of TUEs, saying in the past it would not apply for them to treat riders for allergies while in competition.
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