“I want to start building bridges to prove that I am doing this off of bread and water”
Five days after blasting doubters on Twitter, Bradley Wiggins yesterday said that he has accepted that he needs to be more open with the media in order to show people that he is riding above suspicion.
The Tour de France race leader spoke on the topic yesterday, saying that he accepts that the scandals of recent years have led to legitimate questions of anyone who is in the position of Maillot Jaune, and that being open is the best philosophy.
“The other day when we spoke in here, I went back that night and thought about it quite a lot that evening [and] the night after,” he said in the post-stage press conference. “I said it to my wife ‘what is the point in winning the Tour de France, or attempting to win the Tour, if it is not going to go down in history for the right reasons or with a slight amount of suspicion from certain parts of the media?’ I had a chat with a close friend of mine who is also a journalist. He explained it to me from a media point of view. I started to understand a little bit from certain parts of the media why those questions are asked, and I started to accept it a little bit.
“It is alright me sitting up here every time saying ‘I don’t want to talk about it, I’ve said what I want to say about it.’ But if I am to be in this position for another week, let’s hope, and then beyond…next season in trying to do it all again, there is no point in me sitting and swearing every time that question gets answered.”
Last Sunday Wiggins used strong language about those who questioned him on Twitter. He has changed his approach considerably in the days since, and wrote at length in his Guardian blog about why he said he wouldn’t dope.
His talk yesterday elaborated on that. “Okay, I shouldn’t have swore last week, but we are all grown men, we have all heard swear words,” he said. “But I was just speaking straight from the heart. With my column in the Guardian, I thought, let me try and articulate this a little bit from what I have in my life and what I have to lose in my life. It was based on if I was hold a hand full of sand here, if it could just all go through my hands at any time.
“That is what I was trying to write today. It hurts me when people say…I take it very personally, perhaps I shouldn’t take it personally, perhaps it is just the position our sport is in from the people who have set the precedent, who have sat in this position before me.
“When I ask those questions, what else can I do, what else…I do want to start building bridges to prove that I am doing this off of bread and water and nothing else…and hard work. If I can be as open and honest as possible, hopefully that will go some way to helping people believe what I am doing is honest and off of bread and water.”