Bradley Wiggins: Lance Armstrong has been singled out, I see the human side
18 October 2018 12:00
Bradley Wiggins has said he see sees the "human side" to Lance Armstrong, arguing that the American has been "singled out" for his transgressions. Speaking on British radio station TalkSport, the 2012 Tour de France champion insisted Armstrong is an iconic figure in cycling - if not an icon - who will always be his inspiration for taking up the sport. Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times between 1999 and 2005 but was stripped of his titles when he admitted to doping at the start of 2013, at which point Wiggins was the reigning Tour de France champion. At the time, Wiggins described Armstrong as a "lying bastard" when he denied he'd doped on his comeback in 2009 and 2010, having beaten Wiggins to the final spot of the 2009 Tour de France podium. Now, Wiggins has written a book, entitled 'Icons', and one of the chapters is devoted to Armstrong, some of whose old racing jerseys he still has at his home as part of a huge collection of cycling memorabilia. ADVERTISEMENT "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 years of age, and I was enthralled by it. 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 said on TalkSport. "I'm not saying he's an icon. He's iconic, for good and bad reasons now. Whether people like it or not, he's iconic in some way - good or bad. For me, I can't change the way it made me feel when I was 13. It changed my life." Asked if Armstrong, who is serving a lifetime ban from sport, is still a hero to him, he said: "Hero is a bit strong, from the human side… I still speak to him, I know him as a person - post cycling, post what he's been through."
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