Cycling: Wiggins unfazed by cycling's tarnished image

Olympic gold medal winner Bradley Wiggins insists he will never let cycling's persistent problems with drug cheats ruin his Tour de France dream.

The 28-year-old track star, who won individual and team pursuit golds at Beijing, will now be clocking up the miles on the roads to get ready for next summer's Tour.

Wiggins is desperate to emulate Team GB colleague Mark Cavendish by winning a stage but although doping scandals have always dogged the event it was convinced the opportunities for cheats were becoming fewer and fewer.

He said: "The sport is always getting tainted by it but the testing procedure is showing that more and more people are getting caught.

"And I still think it is a minority out there who are doing it - there are other sports that are worse than cycling. Cycling is coming to the forefront because they are finding people.

"Cycling has invested so much money in testing and that's good. It is also costing the riders money. I pay three per cent of my contract this year towards our own in-house testing at Team Columbia.

"The riders have all agreed to pay for it to prove we are not taking anything. A lot of the teams are taking that stance."

Wiggins is keen for a British team to take part in the event and is hopeful this could happen by 2011. And if so he was convinced no Team GB rider would ever be accused of substance abuse.

He said: "I can't speak for other nations but here there is no way you can do it here now.

"UK Sport know where I am at all time so they could turn up and test me at any time. It is not like I could disappear to Land's End for a week on growth hormones."

Wiggins has always made his anti-drug views known but insists he is no evangelist.

He said: "I'm not a big campaigner because I just get on with my own life. If people ask me I just say why I don't do it and that's all I can do. I don't want to preach from the rooftops because that's not me.

"If I had been young and easily-influenced, and had different people around me, I might have fallen into that so I don't look down on anyone for doing it. I just give the reasons why I don't do it."

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has come out of retirement to compete but has already had to respond to insinuations that he used performance-enhancing drugs in the past.

Wiggins said: "His comeback is good for the sport as it will make for a great race but at the same time the suspicion of drugs always comes up again and it ends up being a negative story."

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