Wiggins: Waiting seemed the honourable thing to do

“I didn’t see a lot out on the road really. I just heard that there were so many flats in a couple of seconds. I wasn’t aware of it until it happened. No one wants to benefit from someone else’s misfortune so I think we should decide this thing on the climbs, through racing and not through other people’s misfortune.
“I don’t know what happened. People who watched it on television probably know more than me.
“I heard rumours that there were thumb tacks on the road. It’s unfortunate that something external to the racing is affecting the racing. It’s quite sad really.
“Everybody sees those situations differently but personally I wouldn’t want to benefit from something like that. I thought the best thing to do is to wait. If you can’t gain times on the climbs, then you don’t do it when someone’s punctured – not even when it’s an ordinary puncture... so when it was something like what happened today, something external affecting the race, then it’s even more so.
“There were so many punctures at once that it was obvious that something had happened. We went up the climb hard. Nothing happened. And obviously it seems logical to wait; we were 17 minutes behind the breakaway... when everyone punctured at once it made sense to ride easy for a couple of kilometres so everybody could get their wheels changed. The climb was so narrow that the team cars were a long way back and waiting seemed the honourable thing to do.
“No one wants to see something like that have an impact on the race. As a group the thing to do was to wait. The stage win was over. The climb was over. There was nothing left to contest really...”