SIR Bradley Wiggins has retired from competitive cycling after one of the most remarkable careers in British sporting history.
Wiggins bows out as the proud owner of eight Olympic medals – a national record that includes five golds – and became the first Briton to win the Tour de France when he claimed the yellow jersey in 2012.
But his departure comes at a time when cycling is once again under the microscope of anti-doping agencies and Wiggins’s own use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) has caused significant debate.
It was revealed in September that he received three TUEs for an otherwise banned substance ahead of three Grand Tours, including the 2012 Tour.
Wiggins and Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford insist triamcinolone was medically necessary for a pollen allergy which aggravates his asthma and the TUEs were approved by cycling’s world governing body, the UCI.
On the same Instagram page that bears his farewell is a mocked-up picture of Wiggins as Braveheart with the legend “They can never take my package!!”.
That is an apparent reference to a delivery made to Team Sky when Wiggins was competing at the 2011 Dauphine Libere, a key Tour de France warm-up race. The contents have been subject to a UK Anti-Doping investigation into alleged “wrongdoing”.
Brailsford told a Department of Culture, Media and Sport select committee last week the package contained fluimucil, an over-the-counter decongestant available inexpensively in France.
All parties deny breaking any rules.
Shane Sutton, the former British Cycling team director and a close associate of Wiggins, appeared at the same hearing as Brailsford and provided a passionate defence of both the rider and the wider Team Sky programme.
“Knowing the kid (Wiggins) for many, many years as far as I’m concerned he never worked outside any rules,” Sutton told MPs.
Wiggins posted a valedictory statement on his Instagram page yesterday afternoon, accompanying a picture of his collected race jerseys, medals and trophies.
In it, he said: “2016 is the end of the road for this chapter, onwards and upwards, ‘feet on the ground, head in the clouds’ kids from Kilburn don’t win Olympic Golds and Tour de Frances! They do now.”
Wiggins, who conquered his sport on the road as well as in the velodrome, won his fifth Olympic gold in Rio this year as part of the world record-breaking pursuit team, adding to a tally that also includes a silver and two bronzes.
He competed in five successive Games from Sydney 2000 and reached a career high in 2012 when he completed an unprecedented double of a maiden Tour de France victory with Team Sky and a home Olympic triumph in the time-trial in London.
