Sir Bradley Wiggins 'emotional' at Lance Armstrong confession

Britain's Sir Bradley Wiggins said he was "sad and angry" after disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs.

The 2012 Tour de France winner watched Armstrong, 41, confess in a television interview with Oprah Winfrey.

"It was quite sad really, sad for the sport but then the anger kicks in," said Wiggins, who will ride the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France in 2013.

"This was someone I admired for so long and looked up to," he added.

Wiggins, 32, watched with his seven-year-old son as Armstrong ended years of denials by admitting he cheated during all seven of his Tour de France wins between 1999-2005.

"I was slightly emotional just watching him after he lied for so long, so convincingly," Wiggins said. "To watch him just cave in and say 'yes' to those first six questions was quite sad.

"But there's hope, isn't there? Because I won the Tour de France!

"And my son knows I'm never going to have to have that conversation with him like when Lance broke down and his son, at 13, asked him 'Is it true?' And that's something I'm incredibly proud of."

Wiggins finished fourth in the 2009 Tour de France just behind Armstrong and feels the American "robbed" him of a place on the podium.

He was subsequently promoted to third place in October 2012 although Armstrong, who was stripped of all his results by cycling's governing body the UCI, denies taking drugs after returning to the sport in 2009 following his retirement four years earlier.

Wiggins said: "I remember doing an interview on the Champs Elysees saying that 'I don't mind admitting it but I've been beaten by three much better riders and I'm happy to be in their company and finish fourth'.

"I look back now and he certainly robbed me of maybe third place in the Tour de France and standing on that podium and experiencing what that was like."

Fellow Team Sky rider Chris Froome, who was runner-up to Wiggins in 2012, said he hopes the sport can move on quickly from the damage that Armstrong has done.

The Kenyan-born 27-year-old said: "All of us professionals, who are doing it properly at the moment, we're all angry that we're now being painted with the same brush if you like.

"He's done a lot of harm to the sport.

"For me, personally, I think the faster people can move on from it, the better it will be for the sport and hopefully, learn from it - learn exactly what he was doing - and make sure there's absolutely no way it would ever happen again."

Team Sky have revealed that Wiggins will start his season at the Mallorca Challenge (3-6 February) before heading to the Tour of Oman (11-16 February) where Froome will start his campaign.

Froome is then set to follow in Wiggins's footsteps as he prepares for the Tour de France by riding in the Paris-Nice, Tour du Romandie and Criterium du Dauphine stage races (all of which Wiggins won last year), injury and illness permitting.

Wiggins is set to race in the oldest one-day classic on the calendar, the 160-mile Liege-Bastogne-Liege in Belgium on 21 April before starting the three-week Giro d'Italia which runs from 4-26 May and will join up with Froome at the Tour de France (28 June - 21 July).