Bradley Wiggins legacy could suffer because of TUEs - Marcel Kittel

Wiggins has won five Olympic gold medals

Sir Bradley Wiggins' legacy could suffer because of the controversy over his use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs), rider Marcel Kittel says.

Britain's most decorated Olympian, an asthma sufferer, had TUEs for a banned steroid before major cycling races.

"The bigger the story gets, the more it will also fall back on his career and on himself," German Kittel, 28, said.

The sprinter, who rides for Quick-Step Floors, added that TUEs have "no space in our sport anymore".

In October 2016, Kittel said that athletes with severe asthma have "no place in competitive sport" if they need otherwise banned medication to treat it.

Wiggins, who retired in December, has come under scrutiny after the his confidential medical information was leaked by hackers 'Fancy Bears' in September 2016.

TUEs let athletes take prohibited substances if there is a medical need and 36-year-old Wiggins was granted a TUE to take anti-inflammatory drug triamcinolone before the 2011 Tour de France, his 2012 Tour win and the 2013 Giro d'Italia.

Wiggins' TUEs were approved by British authorities and cycling's world governing body the UCI, and there is no suggestion either he or Team Sky have broken any rules.

"I don't think that anyone who is seriously sick should use those TUEs or, if he has to use them because he needs to recover from an injury or whatever, then he should also take time and really recover from it and then come back afterwards," added Kittel, who has won stages in each of the three Grand Tours.

There are also questions over a medical package Wiggins received in 2011.

UK Anti-Doping (Ukad) has been investigating allegations of doping in cycling after it emerged a mystery medical package was delivered to a Team Sky doctor for Wiggins on the final day of the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine, which the Briton won.

Brailsford, the former performance director of British Cycling, last month told a parliamentary select committee he understood the package contained a legal decongestant, Fluimucil.