Paul Kimmage believes Chris Froome should be 'held to the same standard' of everybody else after the cyclist was allowed to participate in the Tour de France.
Kimmage was speaking on the Sunday Paper Review alongside Joe Molloy and Dermot Gilleece ahead of Froome's involvement in stage two of the event.
The four-time winner has been allowed to defend his title after seeing his anti-doping disciplinary case dropped by the UCI despite having elevated levels of the asthma drug salbutamol at last year’s Vuelta a Espana.
Froome avoided a late crash in stage two to finish in the peloton after suffering a crash of his own in stage one of the Tour de France this weekend.
Kimmage, citing David Walsh’s piece in The Sunday Times, said: “’The funniest thing happened in September 2016 when the Fancy Bear hack site revealed that Sir Bradley Wiggins had received three therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) before his biggest races in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
“As it so often does the story broke on the third day of our family holiday which meant for the following three days there was no holiday. I called Froome for his reaction.’”
Kimmage followed with his own reaction to the piece.
“If you’re going to hold up Bradley Wiggins for a good kicking then you also have to mention that Chris Froome was in the Fancy Bears," Kimmage said.
“Chris Froome was in there for his (TUE) and he didn’t get any flack because we already knew about that. But essentially it’s the same thing. It’s the abuse of a (TUE).
“You can’t hold Wiggins up and not actually say: ‘Chris, you have abused the system with a (TUE)’. He might argue that it was a legitimate (TUE).
“But the point is this; they raced together and yet Wiggins is the bad guy here and Chris we all believe in you. I’m sorry that doesn’t wash. Everybody should be held to the same standard.”
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