PORRENTRUY, Switzerland — Bradley Wiggins kept the yellow jersey at the Tour de France. Keeping his cool was another matter.
PORRENTRUY, Switzerland — Bradley Wiggins kept the yellow jersey at the Tour de France. Keeping his cool was another matter.
The former Olympic champion, with ambitions to be Britain’s first Tour winner, unleashed a profanity-laced tirade after Sunday’s eighth stage in which the race entered Switzerland.
Thibaut Pinot, at 22 the youngest competitor, was the day’s winner and gave France its first stage victory this year. Wiggins quashed a late attack by defending champion Cadel Evans to hold the lead.
Wiggins’ Team Sky has controlled the Tour in a style reminiscent of Lance Armstrong’s former U.S. Postal team. The Briton, however, lost his composure when asked by a reporter to comment on comparisons between the teams and “cynics who believe that you have to be doped up to win the Tour.”
Wiggins, angered by the chatter on social media, let loose with an expletive-filled outburst.
“I cannot be dealing with people like that. It justifies their own bone-idleness because they can’t ever imagine applying themselves to anything in their lives,” he said. “And it’s easy for them to sit under a pseudonym on Twitter and write that.”
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency last month filed charges against Armstrong, accusing the seven-time Tour champion of using performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong denies any wrongdoing.