Cycling in a spin Wiggins’ wife calls Froome a ‘slithering reptile’
Drug test reopens old team-mates’ bitter feud Facebook post deleted and replaced by apology
Sir Bradley Wiggins’s wife Cath Wiggins has called Chris Froome a “slithering reptile” and wondered whether her husband might have been “thrown under the bus” by Team Sky to cover for his old teammate. Froome, the four-time Tour de France winner, was this week revealed to have returned an adverse analytical finding (AAF) for salbutamol during the Vuelta a Espana.
The revelation reopened wounds from an old feud between Froome and Wiggins. In a hastily-deleted post on her Facebook page, which was put out on Twitter for public consumption by a third party, Cath Wiggins wrote that she felt “sick” after learning of Froome’s AAF. “If I was given to conspiracy theory I’d allege they’d thrown my boy under the bus on purpose to cover for this slithering reptile,” she said.
Froome insists he did not take more than the permitted dosage of salbutamol, the asthma medication, during this year’s Vuelta and must now prove that in separate tests. He went on to win the race.
Wiggins’s reputation was badly damaged last year after it emerged that he had received legal injections for Kenacort – a corticosteroid – before three of the biggest races of his career, including the 2012 Tour de France, which he won. Wiggins and Sky were accused of “gaming the Therapeutic Use Exemption system” although they were adamant the injections were to treat allergies.
They were also the subject of a UK Anti-doping investigation into a medical package delivered to him at the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine. Froome was outspoken regarding Wiggins’s TUES, suggesting he was uncomfortable with what his former team-mate had done and saying he did not believe in a “win at all costs” approach. “It is clear the TUE system is open to abuse and I believe this is something the UCI and Wada need to urgently address,” Froome said. “At the same time there are athletes who not only abide by the rules that are in place but also those of fair play.”
After the news of Froome’s failed test, Cath Wiggins posted her “slithering reptile” message to Facebook before swiftly deleting it. She apologised last night via a new Facebook post: “Sorry everyone for my emotional comments and insults. Too much stress got the better of me. Heat of the moment thing and certainly not my intent to fan the flames.”
Cath Wiggins has form when it comes to social-media barbs. She and Froome’s now wife Michelle engaged in heated Twitter exchanges during the 2012 Tour when Wiggins felt that his team-mate was disloyal. Mrs Wiggins praised other members of the Sky Team that year, including Michael Rogers and Richie Porte, commending them for their “genuine, selfless effort and true professionalism”.
Michelle Froome responded by saying: “If you want loyalty, get a Froome-dog, a quality I value although being taken advantage of by others!”
Meanwhile, Team Sky’s future has been thrown into fresh doubt by the announcement that 21st Century Fox is to sell off $66 billion (£49billion) worth of its assets to Disney, including its 39 per cent stake in Sky. Team Sky are jointly owned by 21st Century Fox (15 per cent) and Sky (85 per cent) and it is unclear what their new would-be owners make of all the controversy swirling around the team.
Disney’s top brass would be hard pressed to be as supportive as James Murdoch. The 45-year-old chief executive of 21st Century Fox and chairman of Sky has been one of the team’s staunchest supporters during their annus horribilis.
News of the Disney deal came on another painful day for Team Sky, with Tony Martin, the multiple world time-trial champion, accusing cycling’s world governing body of “double standards” in not provisionally suspending Froome after his test on Sept 7.
The UCI’S rules do not in fact result in the imposition of a mandatory provisional suspension when elevated levels of a Specified Substance such as salbutamol are detected in a sample.