Bat Man said:
No question in my mind Wiggins is clean. If you watch him interviewed, his answeres are not calculated. The things he says are much more of a denial than Armstrong's formulaic defenses. Armstrong would play cremlinology in some of things he said, as if he was talking to two audience. Classic case was at the ToC with Kimmage, where he answered by saying doping has always gone on - clearly implying that he's carrying on a tradition. That's the way he would always answer the question. And he said "some people" thought it was good Millar confessed, again implying that was not his view. For those paying attention, it was clear he thought doping should play a role in the sport. With Wiggins there is none of that. Why in the world would Wiggins talk about watching Armstrong having to admit to his children about doping, and talk about his own kid?
If I'd been going around for the last few years smearing Wiggins as a doper, I would be thinking about going on Oprah to say a few things in the spirit of truth and reconciliation.
But what is very noticeable is that Wiggins' strongest anti-doping statements came when he was not a big name, and how badly he reacted to being judged by the standards he set himself.
Wiggins 2007: Tour winners for the next six years should accept that they will be seen as suspect and with reason.
Wiggins 2012: Tour winners are f***ing clean and anybody who doesn't f***ing believe in me is a f***ing w*****.
Wiggins 2007: Any team with anybody with a 1% suspicion of doping should be kicked out the race.
Wiggins 2012: Any team with a doctor who has been named in court documents as being involved in doping should be above suspicion because they said they were clean.
Wiggins 2007: Vino is a doping joke, I mean winning the Tour ITT by two minutes is a sign of obvious doping.
Wiggins 2012: Hey, Chris was within 2 minutes, which only goes to show how wonderful and clean I am!
Yes, people change over time. But the way Wiggins snapped at people for voicing
what used to be his own opinion is concerning. He's done more than one U-turn over Armstrong, and this last one is in what we would consider the correct direction... but his U-turn on what he formerly considered healthy suspicion is in the opposite direction. Bradley Wiggins, in his current position as a semi-patron and an unofficial spokesman for the péloton, is filled with awkward, difficult contradictions, conflicts and ambiguities who has to reconcile a maze of contradictory opinions that he has spouted at various times to various audiences with a wildly varying cast of characters in behind him. After all, he rode with Millar in 2009, there was more than a 1% chance about him. Maybe Leinders told Brad he was sorry, just like Millar, so that was enough to make him OK.
Wiggins' tendency to be wilfully contrary and wind people up also makes it harder to tell where he stands. There are far too many contradictions in his soundbites over all of the issues for us to be able to take anything he says as read without closer scrutiny and assessment against other things he's said.
For example, if he came out tomorrow and said doping doctors were the scourge of the sport and ridding it of them is far more important than ridding it of doping riders as it would make progress to a clean péloton much faster, we might consider it fits with his 2007 self's comments about 1% suspicion, and we might agree with him but consider him a complete hypocrite considering the lack of remorse about calling people names for suspecting Sky when one of said doping doctors was on his team. Wiggins says plenty which is agreeable to much of the Clinic - but also disagreeable to his own statements at other times, which makes trusting him on his word very difficult to do.