He looks as though he has a low body fat %. Does anyone kbow what it is?

Spot of sugar on them then?

As an aside I always enjoy the Eurosport commentators laconic translations of the foreign riders. Shame he can't do the same for the Irish fella that commentates with him.

Great that he supports Wigan, but I'd be stretched to call him an athlete.

As my boss said, he looks like a 'skag head'. He's impossibly thin.

Anyone who does the miles those riders do, going up some of those mountains is definitely an athlete. Different athletes have different body shapes depending on their sport.

Anyone who does 34hours per week on a bike is an athlete in my book.

What a bizarre thing to say!

Of course he is. It's his job to ride up the side of mountains at about 20mph. Power to weight ratio is his money winner. He has to ride every kind of geography there is day after day for three weeks. Not an athlete? He's impossibly thin on 10,000 calories a day. That's how easy this is.

I agree.

Phil 'the power' Taylor now there's an athlete!

As Sid Waddell says ' these boys have got to be really fit'.

This is probably the comment of the year try doing just one day of what Wiggins does and then say hes not an athlete. The tours are one of the hardest athletic comps going!

What exactly do you class as an athlete?

I was involved with a coaching session with the Brisbane team when they played Saints possibly 8 years ago in a world club championship, they were training at the EIS in Manchester.

All of them to a man crowded round a cyclist on a treadmill after there session to applaud him as he was peddling at full pelt at a ridiculous angle as the treadmill rose.

Lockyer stayed behind after to talk to the lad, and it was not to give the cyclist a thrill as he had no idea who there big Australian guys were.

Someone that doesn't look like they're cooking up heroin just out of camera shot.

So Hock wasn't an athlete when he was dabbling in his stuff then? Pfft.

I've done quite a few rides similar to a stage of the Tour and do so after training maybe 15 hours a week on the bike. Let me tell you, these boys would kill me, and they do it every day for 3 weeks.

Go out for a ride with a pro and try and keep up for 10 minutes, your opinion of their athletic ability might change.

Just to play devils advocate, its hardly a sport with a "clean" image. Older sports fans here will know that, for all their athletism, which cannot be denied, the sport has been dogged for decades with controvery and suspicion. I point these comments at no one in particular, just the sport in general.