To all the cynics, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry you can't believe in miracles. This is a great sporting event and hard work wins it.

What matters is ultimately what collectively those people on the street - whether that's the cycling community, the cancer community - it matters what they think.

Everything in my life is in perspective. OK, perspective ebbs and flows. I've had bad days, but they weren't in the last years. A bad day is 2 October 1996: 'We've got bad news for you, you've got advanced testicular cancer and you've got a coin's toss chance of survival.' That's a bad day.

I've given gifts in the Tour de France and it's come back to bit me. So no gifts.

One of the redeeming things about being an athlete is redefining what is humanly possible.

But the fact is that I wouldn't have won even a single Tour de France without the lesson of illness. What it teaches is this: pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.

There was certainly a dishonesty there that I think is totally regrettable and inexcusable. The ringleading, the bullying: not totally true.