Froome’s victory at the Tour de France this summer was played out to a soundtrack of boos and speculative slurs and he vowed to undergo independent physiological tests in an attempt to appease those doubting the credibility of his performances. The results will be published in British magazine Esquire, on their website on Friday and in print on Monday.
"It's what people have called for and Chris has done it, so hats off to him," said Wiggins, speaking on British radio station BBC Radio 5 live.
"I'm sure it is not something for them to live and die by, or if it will change anything. It is a small step maybe."
Wiggins, who won the Tour de France in 2012, the year before Froome won his first Tour title, is no stranger to the issues at play when it comes to making physiological information public. The British rider released his values over a one-and-a-half year period from 2008 to 2009 after he finished fourth in the Tour de France, having switched his priorities from the track to the road.
In 2011 he called for riders’ biological passport data to be made public in a bid for greater transparency and the following year was forced to face the inevitable questions as the first Tour winner in the post-USADA era. What Froome went through this July was even more intense and Wiggins, who has had his frictions with his former Sky teammate, praised the way he dealt with it all and went on to secure a second yellow jersey.
"I think to be under that amount of scrutiny for three weeks and do what he did was admirable," said Wiggins. "It shows his physical and mental strength to be able to deal with that.
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"Being spat at - sport is hard enough as it is without facing what he had to face."
