Bradley Wiggins' use of drug exemptions 'stinks', says Dutch star Tom Dumoulin

The Briton, who won the event in 2012 before picking up gold at the London Olympics time trial, was handed a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for triamcinolone, a banned drug, before both of the races in France and the 2013 Giro d’Italia.

His use of the drugs was revealed by Russian hackers who call themselves Fancy Bears. But experts have insisted that he could have managed his illness by using inhalers instead of the intramuscular injections that were given to him.

And now Dumoulin says he is surprised that triamcinolone needed to be injected for the asthma condition. He told De Limburger, a regional paper in the Netherlands, that injecting would mean that Wiggins would have had “very bad asthma” and should not have been allowed to take part in races so soon after receiving them.

“This is not something they do with normal asthmatics, let alone athletes who only have exercise-induced asthma,” he added.

“Apparently Wiggins' injection also worked for weeks – then in my opinion you should be out of competition for weeks. That thing stinks.”

Wiggins is due to put his side of the story in a pre-recorded interview with Andrew Marr, that will air on the BBC on Sunday.

In a previous statement, Wiggins' representative had said: “Everyone knows Brad suffers from asthma, his medical treatment is British Cycling and International Cycling Union approved and like all Team GB athletes he follows regulations.”