William Fotheringham: Brad, can you explain about the allergy which is behind these TUEs?

Bradley Wiggins: I’ve got a history of allergy to pollen. I’ve got a timeline. I’ve been racking my brains for the last few days right back to the first time I had real problems with it, problems it was causing me in races. The 2003 Giro was the first time I really struggled with it, the first time I’d gone to a three-week stage race and noticed it, a noticeable difference to performance. More than that, when I had a severe attack, the day after I was wiped out [Wiggins was eliminated from the 2003 Giro after the 18th stage where he was outside the time limit].

WF: What exactly is it?

BW: Uncontrollable sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes, the urge to rub my eyes constantly, and in doing that the eyes becoming bloodshot … extreme. My breathing became restricted, like breathing through a straw at times. The first person I really consulted on this and made aware of it was Dr Roger Palfreeman who was the then British Cycling doctor. All that would be on my medical records at BC, I assume.

I completed a series of lung function tests in 2003 in his office, the results of which were sent to the UCI and he pushed hard with the French Federation – I was racing for a French team at that time – and the UCI. I’m not sure what it would have been called but it was the equivalent of today’s TUE. Back then at a pro team it would be written in your health book, it would be for two inhalers, fluticazone and salbutamol – it was the red inhaler basically. It was all agreed, stamped off and sent to the French Federation.

In 2004 I went through the same process again, but I needed authorisation to compete at the summer Olympics under IOC doping regulations. So I had to complete another series of lung function tests, at the Manchester velodrome conducted by Andrea Wooles, who was in charge of that. She’s now married to the Canadian performance director Richard Wooles.

Again, I did the lung function tests, all was well and I got authorisation from the IOC. From 2005 to 2008 those applications were renewed each January to cover me for the season. They were all done by Roger Palfreeman, because I was riding for three different teams through that era.

So my continual touch-base was always back in Manchester with BC, because of the language thing. The French doctors were always changing. By 2008 I was with the American team High Road, again there was a series of different doctors so it was always easier to keep that continuing with the doctor [at BC] so there were no mistakes. Every January I was certified to use these inhalers.

Then up to 2009, I joined Garmin, another American team. Through that year I had contact with various members of Garmin’s medical team at races, but my main point of contact remained Dr Roger Palfreeman. In that period it was always Roger.

Bradley Wiggins reaches the summit of Mont Ventoux during the 2009 Tour de France, with Garmin. Photograph: Christophe Karaba/EPA

[At this point Wiggins shows interviewer his personal page on the Adams system – the computer system through which he monitors his “whereabouts” for random testing. The TUEs are listed on the left of the web page. They tally with those leaked by the Fancy Bears hackers.]

BW: When the TUE applications are granted, they are uploaded to my Adams system, so that is what I live by every day. I can’t do anything, administer anything, take anything unless I have authorisation clearly in front of me on my database. That’s where my strict liability ends as an athlete. I enter my hour slots [availability for random testing] each day and whatever goes into my body, unless I have the confirmation that says ‘it’s all right Brad I’ve seen it,’ until it’s on there …

WF: We need to keep going through the allergies.

BW: In 2010 I joined Team Sky, late in the day. By then Richard Freeman had been taken on at BC [Dr Palfreeman had resigned in spring of 2010]. He also became the Team Sky doctor, doing that with the BC job as it were. That kept it all in house. Most of the team was [from BC] then. So that was that.

In 2010 I raced the Giro and the Tour which coincided with the pollen season. Historically for me it was May, June, July. Even though I performed well in the [2010] Giro, won the prologue, by the time we moved further south the symptoms became, as per usual at the Giro. As I said in 2003, 2005, it was always the same. I was under continual medication as I’d always been so it was two Clarityns per day, one in the morning, one at night, nasal sprays, inhalers two in the morning two at night, eye drops again as and when. I was on the maximum for over-the-counter products. I struggled in the Tour that year with it, a mixture of allergies, crashing, a mixed bag of stuff really.

[Wiggins finished 40th in the Giro, having won the prologue in Amsterdam; he finished 23rd in the Tour]

BW: Then it was 2011. I raced through to Paris-Roubaix that year, had a knee injury and needed a break after that. I didn’t race again until 26 April, the Tour of Romandie. It was pretty wet and cold all week so I didn’t really display any symptoms. We went straight from there to Tenerife on 13 May. That’s a volcanic landscape so I’ve never struggled with allergies up there, there’s no grass etc.

I came back from there, did the national time trial championships week after on 21 May, had first signs of symptoms being back home about nine days before I went to the Bayern Rundfahrt in Germany. I did Bayern Rundfahrt and won the time trial, the second-last stage, but I’d been affected by the pollen all week, it was quite a hot week, that time of year. I felt I’d lost the race because of it. I was starting to go really well, off the back of the altitude training etc. But I’d had quite a vicious attack with it earlier in the week and it felt like it always did – leave me feeling a bit weak the next day.

I recovered enough in time to win the time trial, went home for four days before travelling off to the Dauphiné Libéré. Dr Freeman was the race doctor for us there. I hadn’t seen him since Paris-Nice; [my] symptoms continued, as in “how’s it going Brad? “I’m really struggling with these allergies, I had a terrible attack last week.” As per usual in races the doctor will always check: have you got any minor niggles, anything we can do to help you at this stage?

So I was still complaining of the usual symptoms, the standard stuff, but the form was good and I was in a good place after being at altitude and everything.

He suggested at that time that when you go back to Manchester let’s go and see an independent specialist and see if there is anything you can change of the medication you’re already on, and have been on for a number of years now, or if there is anything we’re not doing. He’ll do blood tests, run a series of tests on you and see what comes of it.

I was quite sceptical at this stage because I’d learned to live with and manage this for my whole career pretty much … all the tablets, nasal sprays, eyedrops etc. I didn’t think much more of it, did the Dauphiné, won the Dauphiné, still had the usual symptoms throughout but it wasn’t something that, other than asking the doctor can I have some more Clarityn or can I have another nasal spray, or my inhaler’s nearly running out, it wasn’t something that I was shouting from the rooftops or complaining about because I had learnt to manage this, although ineffectively. It was something that I’d learned to live with. I’d had to get on and manage this.

Wiggins during the Dauphiné prologue in 2011, which he would go on to win. Photograph: Laurent Cipriani/AP

So after the Dauphiné [which finished on 12 June] we went straight to [the Italian ski resort of] Sestriere for a week training at altitude to top it up, so I didn’t go home.

I crashed on the last day at the camp on the descent of the Col de la Croix de Fer, so I travelled home straight afterwards, the next couple of days was about getting treatment, physio, making sure everything was all right before I had to travel to the national road race a couple of days later. So I did all that. I heard nothing more of going and seeing a specialist.

WF: Had you seen the specialist at this stage?

BW: I hadn’t been home yet. So I did all that [before the national championship Wiggins also attended a Team Sky press day in Richmond], went to the nationals [which were in Stamfordham, Northumberland on 26 June], won the nationals, and coming back from the national I saw the specialist then on 28 June at the Beaumont hospital in Bolton. This was the first time I’d been home long enough and it was only a couple of days until we travelled to the Tour [which started on 2 July].

I saw the specialist, he did a full examination of me, blood tests, this that and the other, I went home and he compiled his report for Richard Freeman. That’s the report he made to Richard Freeman. Upon doing that the medication he suggested in there would need an application for a TUE. I was still unaware at this stage of what was happening because it was the first time I’d seen a specialist. Richard called me and said: “you’ve been granted authorisation for a TUE based on seeing Dr Hargreaves” and that was that. He showed me the TUE application, he showed me the TUE certificate. [This is what features on the Fancy Bears website.] And it was administered. At that time it was like this is going to cure … This is going to go a long way towards you not having any problems for the next three weeks now.

So that was 2011. That was the first time I’d been granted permission for the TUE. Obviously I crashed out of that [2011] Tour.

Then into 2012. Obviously [a good] start to the year [Wiggins won a stage in the Tour of Algarve and won Paris-Nice in early March]. In April we were in Tenerife, you came up there to do an interview I recall [in fact Fotheringham made the trip in mid-May, the piece appearing in the Guardian on 22 May].

No symptoms up in April, up in Tenerife. Straight back from Tenerife to the Tour of Romandie, I won the first and last stages, we were up in the mountains and I didn’t display any symptoms.

And then we saw … Pre-empting coming into May, June, July we saw Dr Hargreaves again, went back to see the specialist for a second series of tests, blood results etc, and again left that, you don’t get the findings …

Back to Majorca in mid-May with the family training, went straight from there to Tenerife from May 14-25 [this was in fact when the Guardian interview took place], no symptoms up there.

Wiggins trains in the mountains of Majorca in 2012. Photograph: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images

Then I came back end of May, started to get the onset of symptoms then, once I was back home, we live surrounded by fields and woods, flowers and things so straight away I’d come out of that bubble in Tenerife and was straight into the onset of symptoms. Started all the usual, Clarityn, this that and the other, went to the Dauphiné, symptoms carried on as per usual, won the Dauphiné, then on to …

WF: How is it you can win the Dauphiné in spite of the symptoms?

BW: As I said before I’d learnt to manage it. And some days were worse than others, some days I’d be fine, I’d come in the bus, I’d be absolutely fine depending where we were. If we were on top of a mountain it’d be completely different to if we were finishing in a town, a small village or something. You could never predict.

One thing I would constantly have is a blocked nose. I’d be constantly like I was full of a cold. Particularly when I was lying down, having a massage on my front, my nose would fill up and you could hear it in my voice talking afterwards. People would say, have you got a cold, you’re not ill are you? No, I’ve got hay fever, allergies. It was just a constant thing. That didn’t stop me from being able to perform and train, it was kind of … A lot of it I found was a build up. If I was symptomatic for a long period over time I found that I really weakened off and I’d notice the effects more. But if I’d been somewhere like Tenerife for two weeks, no symptoms … That year I travelled a lot, I was either in Majorca or I was in Tenerife and very rarely at home.

WF: It’s essentially that same picture throughout 2012 and 2013?

BW: In 2012 when we saw Dr Hargreaves … We saw him on 8 May that year. That’s his report from that. Richard would have applied for a TUE again, we assume. I haven’t seen Richard’s records of when he made the applications, I’ve only seen the 2011 one. So that was that really. I just carried on with my day job really, not knowing whether we’d be granted a TUE or whether we wouldn’t be granted a TUE, whether a TUE application had been made. It was kind of … I left that to the medical team. They discussed these things.

I was in a team, I’d been not just in Team Sky but British Cycling before that so I knew how these things would operate. They’ve discussed with you in the past, the RDTs, [Rider Development Teams; a forum within British Cycling where coaches and specialists dealing with a particular rider will go through issues with senior management] where they would go through each rider with the whole support crew around them – coach, physio, this that and the other. Where’s this rider at, what can we do to help him at this stage?

So I knew these things were discussed, I knew that at some point someone would say “OK so where is Brad at now? Is he on top of his allergies? What is he doing this week?” It was in Year in Yellow in the film – Dave [Brailsford], Shane [Sutton], Tim [Kerrison], sitting in the office talking about my training – Brad’s power, where is he up to? I just carried on with my day job until I was told ‘you’re doing this or you’re doing that.’

We didn’t come back from the Dauphiné [which finished on June 10], we went straight to Châtel for post-Tour [sic – he must actually mean pre-Tour] camp, recon, looking at the time trial etc, went straight from there to Majorca with the family as we used to do then to get a week in before the Tour, then came back from Majorca on June 25 which was a Monday. We set off for the Tour on a Wednesday that year which would have been the 27th, by which time Richard had contacted me and said we had been granted a TUE based on Dr Hargreaves’ report. We had thought that was the best course of action to take. I’d been granted a TUE for the same medication I was on last year. So that was that, that was 2012. It was administered …

WF: You’ve painted a pretty consistent picture here…

BW: This is my history, as I see it, for my allergies. This ain’t me hiding behind anyone else, this is as I have lived, being with different teams throughout the years, until I was in the care of Dr Richard Freeman at BC. He was the first doctor to actually get me to a specialist for that.

WF: In 2010 why didn’t you have the TUE?

BW: It wasn’t suggested to me. Aside from complaining about the normal symptoms – “I’m on Clarityn, can you give me some of that, have we got loads on the race when we go to the Giro or the Tour? Can we have the nasal spray that I’m on? Just checking the usual stuff, eyedrops, red inhalers, blue salbutamol inhalers” – never at any point was it suggested that we go and see a specialist. At the end of the day I was the asset in that period, the team leader, concentrating on training and everything else. The team of people around me, they all had a different job to do.

WF: Did you know what Kenalog was? You knew it was cortisone?

BW: Yes.

WF: That didn’t concern you in any way?

BW: I think … There is a taboo around it but it’s erm … As I said, I think I said it on the Andrew Marr Show, my job as an athlete when someone says ‘right this is the course, this is what Dr Hargreaves has recommended we take, we’ve applied for the TUE, you’ve been granted authorisation to take it’, but what is it? Of course. You ask, I always ask what’s going in my body. Kenalog, cortisone in other words. You get told it’s that tri… whatever it is [triamcinolone], in other words cortisone. All right. Then it’s the same old thing: they use that to treat hay fever allergies because at the end of the day it’s an antihistamine, a very strong, powerful antihistamine. [This is not actually the case, Kenalog and its ilk are synthetic hormones which act on the entire immune response; an antihistamine specifically counters the effects of the inflammatory chemical histamine.]

Wiggins on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show last weekend. Photograph: Handout/Reuters

What doses are they giving? 40 milligrams? Isn’t that what they always used to … usual questions, you’ve read it in the book, isn’t that what they used to use? Yes, but they were taking that in much larger amounts, as and when, to perform or to lose weight. They were basically abusing this drug.

This was for 40mg, intramuscularly, and having been authorised to use it as well, much like the inhalers which are corticosteroids as well, other people that have had bee stings that have to have pen-whatever it is [probably referring to EpiPen, used for bee stings]. So I was fully aware of this drug and the taboo surrounding it all… the misuse and the abuse of this drug in the past.

WF: And that didn’t worry you?

BW: No, it was for a very specific thing to treat something that was historically a problem for me and could be quite a serious problem for me. The problem with it was it was unpredictable. I couldn’t say, well, this was going to happen on this day or wonder what the weather is going to … if we are going to have a hot Tour, if we’re going to have all this stuff floating around the air, that the helicopter’s chopping up from flying over.

At that stage it was quite clear I was going well, all of a sudden I’d become a potential favourite for the Tour de France, or certainly get on the podium.

I’d returned to the form I was in in 2009 and the only thing that could really stop me from achieving that was if I struggled with allergies during the race. It happens. It happened with Quintana this year. He wasn’t himself because of it or he cited those problems. It had been on certain days in the past a real problem for me.

WF: Why didn’t you mention the allergy in the book? It’s not in the book. [This is a reference to the account of 2010-12 My Time ghostwritten by the interviewer]. And it wasn’t there when we did the interviews for the book.

BW: To be honest, this was something I’d lived with since I was 15 years of age. I’d had attacks when I was 15 at juvenile races in Norwich and stuff in the summer. My mother suffers from it terribly. It’s a genetic thing. It’s something I’d got used to. It’s not something I was going to stand on TV in 2010 and say … I’ll be honest with you, I remember doing an interview at the top of a mountain, Ax-Trois-Domaines. I’d had a shocking day, I remember coming down the descent sneezing me head off, blowing snot out of my nose, unable to breath, I got dropped on the last climb and got to the finish. [Australian journalist] John Trevorrow did an interview with me, I just said, “I’m fucked, empty, I’ve got nothing left”.

It was all in reference to poor form, struggling with allergies but I’m not going to sit there … I was paranoid about making excuses: “Ah, my allergies have kicked in.” I’d learned to live with this thing. It wasn’t something I was going to shout from the rooftops and use as an excuse and say, “my allergies have started off again”. That’s convenient isn’t it Brad, your allergies started when you got dropped.

I didn’t mention it in the book. I’d come off a season of … I’d won everything that year. When I was writing the book I wasn’t sat there thinking, “I’d better bring my allergies up”. I was flying on cloud nine after dominating the sport all year. It wasn’t something that I brought to mind.

Like I said, I’ve lived with this. All the doctors over the years I’ve been with in various teams will verify that I was always complaining of allergies. It will be in my medical records, the things they gave to me.

WF: Who within Sky knew that you were having the triamcinolone injections?

BW: Other than my contact with Richard Freeman, who was my point of contact with the medical team, because of his proximity in terms of him being based in Manchester, covering BC and Sky, I don’t know.

I assume that everything I did was discussed around a table with everyone who had a job to do with me, whether that was Tim Kerrison on the coaching front, Shane Sutton on the mentoring front, whoever was taking care of the physio at the time, Dan Guillemette [lead physiotherapist at Team Sky].

These performance meetings that they have and take notes from, I assume that all that was discussed, but I don’t know because I wasn’t there. My main point of contact was Richard Freeman. After that I don’t know what was discussed outside of that office.

I only assume that because I know the detail that goes into these things. Everything is discussed in terms of “where’s Brad this week”, “In Majorca with the family but this is the training programme he’s been given, he’s just seen such and such a chiropractor so that we know he’s on top of those problems, what’s the status with the niggle he was discussing last week”. So all these things are discussed in order to deliver a performance. The doctor was part of that, so I assume that …

WF: Did you have any injections out of competition?

BW: No. For what?

WF: For this?

BW: No, I’d test positive. If it was in my urine [without a TUE] I’d go positive for cortisone. No way. Liability stops with me. Until I’ve got certification, authorisation from Wada and the UCI that I can take that, nothing was ever administered into my body without that.

WF: Do you understand why people think this looks suspicious?

BW: Yeah, I understand because I’ve seen other … I saw the hoo-hah a couple of years ago with Froome with the Tour of Romandie inhaler and the last-minute TUE, racing on it. I saw the hysteria that caused and I understand in the post-Armstrong all that came with that. Yeah, I do understand. But what I don’t understand is that you’ve automatically just assumed that this was a performance enhancer. Some people, a lot of people …

WF: I’m not assuming anything, I’m just asking…

BW: What I’m saying is the loss of perspective and looking at it in the context of everything with your medical records and specialist reports rather than it just going crazy and wild. I refer back to the 2011 Tour, I actually think it was a detriment to my performance. I actually said in the book that in the 2011 Tour I thought I was going to fade away [he refers to loss of form in the race before his crash on page 62 of the paperback of My Time].

The problem was that thing is a catabolic steroid and it may have disadvantaged me – I’d probably have been better without it, because I was already at 70 kilos at the Dauphiné having worked with Nigel Mitchell all year and got down to this weight, starving myself doing seven-hour rides without breakfast and I was climbing well but I was borderline, and in taking this I cured one problem but gave myself another.

Wiggins crashes out of the 2011 Tour de France. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP

I said to you in the book that as the first week went on I felt like I was getting weaker and weaker, I didn’t have the power. Obviously I crashed out so I will never know, but I never felt … there’s a chapter in the book about that, I just thought it had gone the other way and in crashing out that put a stop to that. This stuff … I mean, I was borderline there anyway, right down probably below what was ideal for me and I think this just tipped me over the edge.

WF: There is another side to the time line which is that at the end of 2010 the team hires Doctor Leinders. [Geert Leinders was given a life ban by anti-doping agencies for a string of infringements relating to the period before he joined Sky. There have never been any allegations of improper practice relating to Leinders’s spell at Sky in 2011 and 2012, but the ruling on his time at the Dutch Rabobank team from 2002-09 was detailed and damning.]

BW: Yes.

WF: It has been documented that [while at Dutch team Rabobank from 2002 to 2009] Dr Leinders administered riders with triamcinolone to enhance their performance. The question has to be asked, did Dr Leinders know about your TUEs?

BW: I don’t know, that’s the truth.

WF: Did you ever speak to him about the TUEs?

BW: I never personally spoke to him about that.

WF: Did he ever ask you about your allergies?

BW: Never. The only person I ever spoke to about my TUEs was my doctor Richard Freeman. I don’t know, as I said, whether that was discussed around a table with the medical team. I don’t know if the medical team had meetings together regularly to discuss all the riders – because there were four or five doctors on the team at that stage. So I don’t know. He never spoke to me about it. I can recall two races in 2011, three races that I did with Leinders, that was Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Romandie, and the Vuelta – or half the Vuelta, I think they changed doctors halfway through. That was never discussed with me, never.

WF: But given your symptoms, would he have known?

BW: I don’t know in truth. I don’t know. Other than having the medication I was on. But at those races I had … Paris-Roubaix I had no problems, I crashed at that race …

WF: But would he have seen you taking the medication?

BW: He wouldn’t have seen me. I was on an inhaler. I mean [Sunday Times journalist] David Walsh knew we were all on inhalers in 2013, seven of us.

WF: The question also arises, why did you not have the same TUE in 2014. One of the problems with the TUEs is the timing. It is as simple as that. Why did the TUEs stop in 2014?

BW: The triamcinolone, not the inhaler one? The inhaler ones stopped because you didn’t need one any more…

WF: Because it becomes legal …

BW: Because I was doing the Tour of California that year, I did Paris-Roubaix early season, again no problems, as you know I got ninth, then I was doing Tour of California. Which one in here [looks at the medical letters] says which one I’m allergic to? Timothy, grass isn’t it?

WF: That’s on the Fancy Bears PDFs …

BW: Basically I went from Paris-Roubaix to a race in Italy before the Tour of California. I went to Giro del Trentino, then Tour of California training camp, we did nine days there before the race started. So the first of May I went out there and had no symptoms at all – we were out there for three weeks.

The doctor out there at the time, can’t remember who it was, did the race, anyway I didn’t need medication – I wasn’t taking Clarytin, I wasn’t displaying any symptoms out there.

At the end of that race, that was when I knew that I wasn’t doing the Tour de France. Dave [Brailsford] came out to the end of the race. There were issues with the team whether I’d make selection or not, all the stuff that went with that.

We stayed in America for another week after that. It was during that week I decided I’d come back and have a crack at the track programme for the Commonwealth Games. All that stuff with me going on the BBC was the end result of knowing for a long period then talking with Dave and him saying, why don’t you go and do the Commonwealth Games? Do the pursuit and team pursuit. And that’s when went back to the CG.

I joined the track squad and was training indoors most of the time. I wasn’t displaying the symptoms or they weren’t problematic, it wasn’t a huge issue other than going out on the road around here using Clarityn, eyedrops. I was indoors, I wasn’t having problems with my breathing, I wasn’t complaining about it, I didn’t need to go and see a specialist or anything.

It was the same in 2015. I knew I’d finish at Paris-Roubaix, I knew I’d go and do the Hour Record project and 90% of that is going to be indoors. Even at the height of the pollen season, 5 June [it was actually 7 June], doing the Hour I knew it wasn’t going to be something that would potentially ruin the Hour for me, because as I said it was indoors, it wasn’t a problem.

Wiggins during his record hour cycling attempt at the Lee Valley Velopark, London. Photograph: John Walton/PA

WF: I’ve heard from two different people that at the end of 2010 there was a change in the medical operation at Sky. Did you notice any difference? [There have never been any allegations of improper practice relating to Leinders’s spell at Sky in 2011 and 2012.]

BW: Other than one or two new doctors, no. That was something that wasn’t noticeable as a rider. It may have changed the way things were done among the medical team. As a rider, no, I’d had 10 years of doing it, turning up at bike races, most of the time a different doctor at that race, on-race doctor, but other than that no, nothing different to the year before other than different faces because obviously [Sky carer] Txema [Gonzalez] had died the year before [at the Vuelta]. [The former Sky doctor] David Hulse had left but no, I’m trying to think of the medical team at that time, Dr Richard Freeman, Leinders came on board, no, I didn’t notice anything different.

WF: Did you know about the decision to hire Dr Leinders?

BW: No.

WF: No one spoke about that to you?

BW: I’d had a shit year. My grandad died at the end of the year. I’d lost all contact with the team. I got a massive bollocking at the end of the year from Dave, we’d moved here, I was doing house work and stuff. Cycling was way off the spectrum at that point for me. I felt like I’d got berated all season for under-performing …

The first time, I remember going straight from the Dave Rayner [Fund] dinner that year to the first camp, the get-together which was down Reading way, Marlow, turned up there and had my pre season meeting with the managers: what do you want to do next year? I said I wanted a complete change, wanted to do Paris-Roubaix, De Panne, not worry about the Tour, try and do something early season, something in Paris-Nice.

We had all our pre-season ECGs and everything all on site, because I had missed all that the previous year because I’d joined so late, I’d missed that first get-together because I wasn’t released from Garmin until December. We had our ECGs, all that, and that was the first time I saw Geert Leinders there. I didn’t know who he was or where he’d come from, other than that some of the riders knew him …

WF: Because he’d been at Rabobank …

BW: So that was that. I didn’t really think anything of it other than saying hello to these new faces, I couldn’t wait to get out of there, because at that time I was still coming to terms with everything.

WF: Do you understand people who say that having these injections was unethical. Not illegal, but unethical.

BW: Erm … It seemed … without all the context of someone’s history then I could see that on paper maybe, especially the way some of it has been reported. It’s been very sensationalised in parts and very personal in other parts. Straight off, the way cycling is today, yes, yes. Because it doesn’t take much in cycling in this day and age now because of what’s gone before. So I understand that.

WF: But this is a substance that [confessed doper and anti-doping campaigner] David Millar, for example, is saying should be banned.

BW: Yes. But as I said before I’d like to know in all honesty with David, if that’s the case, what doses were they taking then? Let’s have some more specifics please. When did you take it, how much did you take, how did you feel the day after when you took it? Just to put some context to this dose for this specific reason.

Because it’s all right saying things like that because that gets people riled, but used in the correct way for specific things it has a place like anything in medicine.

So I would say it’s all right Jörg Jaksche saying oh well we used to use that. [German former professional cyclist Jaksche confessed in 2007 to blood doping; in an interview with the website cyclingtips, he stated that he had ‘used the same procedure’]

Well how much did you [Millar] used to use and when? Did you use it before the time trial in 2003 in the Tour when you won the time trial? [Millar won the 2003 time trial from Pornic to Nantes at a time when he was doping]. Did you use it that day? When did you take it - the night before? Did you take it the morning of? How much did you take? What other times did you use it? How much did you used to take before you used to go out and try to lose two kilos in a week? So more specifics around that to give context to the whole situation. That alone, that doesn’t tell you anything. And then what else were you taking at that time in conjunction with that? Was it just cortisone in that period? Was everyone abusing cortisone? Or was it in conjunction with EPO, with testosterone, all those other things?

WF: What about when someone like [Dutch professional] Tom Dumoulin who, as far as I can gather rides for a team which is pretty straight up on its ethics, from what I’ve heard about Giant-Alpecin they have a very distinct ethical approach, when someone like that says, “it stinks”, how do you react to that?

BW: Yeah. Well, I think he’s on the ground racing at the moment when he got asked the question. You have to ask how these questions are loaded to these guys. This is a guy who’s got many, many years left in the sport … What if he says, “no, I’ve got no problem with that, if used in the right context.” “Well would you use it then?” You know how the question is loaded. It has to be put in context.

For someone just to come up and say, “do you condone this using of cortisone?” a lot of riders in this day and age, especially young riders, are not going to say, “well I do actually”. Anyone who can take a step back from this and go, “well actually I’d have to look at the case, I can’t comment at the moment, I’d have to look at the whole case in perspective of why it was used …” In the same way it was reported the other day about Fabian Cancellara, 120mg of prednisolone three days before the Vuelta …

WF: For a bee sting …

BW: But in the context of that, “three days before the Vuelta, what’s that about?” And then it’s not until Trek-Segafredo release the pictures of him and you think bloody hell his face, no wonder he needed [it], so I think it has to be put in context of everything. I understand why that question is being asked but I also know what bike riders are like today and there is a fear factor around saying anything other than no, I wouldn’t.

WF: How would you have felt if someone you were riding against in the Tour de France, let’s say in 2009, had been documented as doing this?

BW: Well, again you’d have to see the whole case. You’d want to know why it had been granted. That’s probably a question for the UCI – how many people are on TUEs in those Tours? Maybe the UCI should say this is well why he was on this TUE, but then there is sensitive medical records here. Some people might have sensitive medical issues that they don’t want people to know about. Unfortunately we are carrying the can for everything that went before here and statements like Dave saying, “this stuff should be banned.”

WF: Do you think TUEs should be made public?

BW: No I don’t, no. Because again …

WF: I don’t mean should they be leaked by the Fancy Bears, what I mean is should it be noted publicly how many TUEs a team has and when? Perhaps not naming the riders? Or listing them by team, date, substance, again without naming the riders? For clarity.

BW: How many people are on TUEs for a start would add context to what’s going on in the peloton at the moment but I think just throwing them out there, “this is what he’s on, this is what he’s on”, that’s ludicrous. I mean there’s all sorts, people might have sexually transmitted diseases that they are on TUEs for, that’s too sensitive for some people. That’s more of a question for the governing bodies and Wada: how do they manage this TUE system across all sports, not just cycling? What’s the application process – it goes to three independent doctors and they all have to sign this TUE off.

WF: But that wasn’t the case when you had yours because the TUE panel didn’t come in until later.

BW: I don’t know who signed it off or who it went through at that stage.

WF: I’m told it was easier to get one before 2014.

BW: Until I get the authorisation back I don’t know what process it’s gone through at that particular time. I was concentrating on winning the national road race or getting ready for the Tour, I was out in Majorca training with the family, I wasn’t thinking I wonder where that is at the moment or what it’s doing. That was the medical team’s job.

WF: It’s been pointed out – rightly – that in the book we wrote together it says specifically that you haven’t had any injections apart from your vaccinations. How did that come about?

BW: As I’ve just said with the cortisone question, with Tom Dumoulin being asked that question … The landscape at that time was very much Lance Armstrong, needle bans, this that and the other. In my eyes at that time when I was asked that question it was very much have you ever used needles …

WF: I have a note which says very specifically that I was going to ask you if you’d had injections other than IVs for recovery in the past, diarrhoea or whatever, to clarify that.

BW: I was still thinking it was loaded in the sense of, if people ask have you used needles, I always automatically assume it’s for intravenous, EPO, those things, testosterone, iron to support EPO use.

In my mind it was always loaded and associated with doping, whenever I was asked that. It was around that time, the UCI had brought in a needle ban … and they were for intravenous injections on races. This is four years ago as well, don’t forget, I’m trying to think of the landscape at the time, Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong’s about to go down, he’s about to lose everything.

I’d just come off the Tour that year, that press conference. In my mind it was always about defending [myself from] that doping culture, everything that went with the doping culture or riders carrying washbags around with their own syringes in and injecting themselves.

People never asked around that time “have you ever been injected by a doctor or a physician for medical reasons?” That’s a completely different question to “do you use needles?”

You’ve got to remember at that time, back when I turned professional, people were still carrying needles around with them in washbags. Early 2000s was a crazy time for that. Riders were doing it for themselves, injecting vitamins or as we’ve seen since the Armstrong thing, hanging drips on the walls. [Riccardo] Riccò nearly killed himself putting it in the fridge himself and storing blood, that to me is: have you ever used needles? That whole taboo around it, the landscape at that time, with Armstrong and having just won the Tour de France, it was always steering towards that – I took every question as steered towards that. I always felt I was having to defend myself, particularly coming off the back of the Tour de France that year where it was, what are Sky up to?

WF: Do you understand that in terms of the triamcinolone injections, we are dealing with a grey area? Do you get that?

BW: I’m trying to get my head around why people see it like that. But I also see it in my eyes as: I’ve got medical evidence to support the problem I had and that was the best course of treatment in order to stop these problems.

[First part of interview ends here. We move on to the build-up to the 2013 Giro d’Italia at Wiggins’s request]

BW: So into 2013 I was going for the Giro d’Italia. Into April it became about how are we going to manage this if I get problems here now? So we went back to see the specialist again and he conducted another report based on blood tests I’d had at that time and his last paragraph here is …

[Wiggins shows interviewer the letter from the specialist, which clearly states that the treatment with Kenalog will provide relief from the symptoms for a period of 6-8 weeks]

BW: The funny thing is I came out of that Giro, having crashed and had a sore knee and stuff, I came home, I ended up having another cortisone injection in Leeds in a hospital for the knee that had got inflamed and stuff, so I didn’t race for another 5-6 weeks, until the Tour of Poland after that … [Wiggins pulled out of the Giro on May 17; the Tour of Poland 2013 ran from 27 July until 3 August when Wiggins won the time trial stage in Krakow]

Wiggins and other leading contenders before the 2013 Giro. Photograph: Luk Benies/AFP/Getty Images

WF: I think that’s been documented already. So that was out of competition, wasn’t it …

BW: Yeah, it would have been out of competition. This was while the Giro was still going on … end of the Giro. I don’t know how it works legally. I didn’t have to apply for a TUE or anything, I just couldn’t race for two weeks.

WF: And did you have any similar injections for the shoulder injury between the Tour in 2011 and the Vuelta?

BW: No. No. I had the operation on whatever day it was, about three days after I crashed. And I think the Vuelta was about five weeks later. We were in Girona in that time, nothing at all other than physio.

WF: Why for the Giro in 2013 didn’t you have the [triamcinolone] injection for [the Giro del] Trentino, which is in the same sort of area [between 16 and 19 April]?

BW: The TUE hadn’t come through in time so obviously I couldn’t. And obviously it wasn’t something you could inject without a TUE. We stayed out in Italy after that for recon and came home, and then the TUE was granted based on the report. I wasn’t aware when the applications were made, anything like that.

Every year I’d just go back and see this specialist to get an updated set of blood tests, do a new set of tests, respiratory, check the airways and all that.

For me it wasn’t about going to see the specialist so that I could obtain a TUE. This was like an annual check-up.

I went back again in 2013, I was struggling again still with some allergies but it was like there was a different strain of it, a different strain of pollen, I went back to see him but nothing came of it. They must have had a report or whatever but nothing came of it, so it wasn’t a case of every time I went to see him it was in order to get a report so that I could get a TUE.