• Wiggins: ‘Not at any time in my career did we cross the ethical line’ • ‘I’d have more rights if I’d murdered someone’

The five-times Olympic cycling champion Sir Bradley Wiggins has said that he is in a “living hell” after his reputation was vaporised by a parliamentary inquiry that concluded he cheated within the rules in order to win the 2012 Tour de France.

Wiggins took the powerful corticosteroid triamcinolone not to treat a legitimate medical condition, as he claimed, but to gain an edge on the competition, according to MPs on the digital, culture, media and sport select committee.

However, the 2012 Tour de France winner denied cheating. He said he was the victim of a smear campaign by an anonymous witness, whose evidence contributed to the MPs’ devastating conclusion.

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“Not at any time in my career did we cross the ethical line,” Wiggins told the BBC on Monday night. “I refute that 100%. This is malicious. This is someone trying to smear me. I would love to know who it is, I think it would answer a lot of questions.

“These allegations, it’s the worst thing to be accused of. It’s also the hardest thing to prove you haven’t done. We’re not dealing in a legal system. I’d have had more rights if I’d murdered someone.”

Wiggins said his children had been taunted at school since an investigation was launched by UK Anti-Doping following the allegation that a mystery Jiffy bag delivered to him at a race in 2011 contained triamcinolone. If it did and Wiggins took it at the time – which he wholeheartedly denies – it would amount to an anti-doping rule violation.

“I’m trying to be in retirement and do other things in my life and the effect it’s had, the widespread effect on the family, it’s horrific,” he said. “I don’t know how I’m going to pick the pieces up with the kids and stuff, as well as try and salvage my reputation from this, I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.”

The MPs concluded that Wiggins cynically obtained therapeutic use exemption, in effect a doctor’s note, to allow him to take normally banned medication purely to enhance his performance.

An anonymous witness, whom the DCMS select committee report referred to as a “well placed source”, claimed Wiggins and a smaller group of riders trained separately from the rest of the team. The MPs’ report reads: “The source said they were all using corticosteroids out of competition to lean down in preparation for the major races that season.”

The report reads: “From the evidence presented to the committee it might appear that Bradley Wiggins may have been treated with triamcinolone on up to nine occasions, in and out of competition, during a four-year period. It would be hard to know what possible medical need could have required such a seemingly excessive use of this drug.”

But Wiggins maintained his use of triamcinolone was legitimate and defended his reasons for taking it before three grand tours, something that only became apparent after Russian hackers leaked his medical data in 2016. “I am a rider for Team Sky, the biggest team in the world at that point,” said Wiggins. “If you’ve got niggles, problems, a knee injury, common cold, you go to the doctor in the team.

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“We are hypochondriacs as athletes, especially coming to the height of the season, the biggest race of the year, whether it is the Olympics Games or the Tour de France. So it was completely under medical need and this whole thing has been a complete mess of innuendo and rumour and nothing has been substantiated.”

MPs on the DCMS select committee criticised the Team Sky architect Sir Dave Brailsford for allowing the outfit’s “winning clean” ethos to be overtaken by a hunger to win. It also said he must bear responsibility for the loss of medical records by Dr Richard Freeman, the team’s former medic. A UK Anti-Doping Agency investigation had to be abandoned last year because of a lack of medical records. It stated it was “impossible” to determine whether a mystery jiffy bag package delivered to Wiggins at the 2011 Critérium du Dauphiné contained the decongestant Fluimucil as he claimed, or triamcinolone, as was alleged.

Wiggins said: “I am having to deal with the fallout of that now. Which is almost impossible. There have been no medical records to back that up or substantiate what’s been said. So I am kind of left in the middle here now, trying to pick up the pieces.”