After criticizing Bradley Wiggins for leaving Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas at home, Dave Brailsford again defended his selection for the Tour de France.

In an interview given by Sporza at the start of stage 17 of the race, Brailsford said his decision was based on facts and data and that he would make the same Tour selection again if given the chance.

Wiggins had supported Brailsford's decision a few weeks ago to build a team around Egan Bernal and leave Froome and Thomas at home, but began to change his attitude when Bernal started losing time in the mountains, and the 2012 winner has been on his own Eurosport podcast, going even further, saying that if Ineos' poor Tour de France performance had been extended to soccer, Brailsford would have been fired.

"It's hard to stay on top year after year. We don't know what happened. We are a team that focuses on performance and planning our season, and for one reason or another it didn't work out. If this was soccer, Dave Brailsford would have quit," Wiggins said. [But Dave has been here before and they will restructure and re-plan and come back next year with a full team. It will help if the world gets back to normal."

The team pulled Bernal out of the race on the morning of stage 17, when the Tour de France officially ended, and Brailsford could not elaborate on why the team was so far off the pace, especially in both the Dauphiné and Tour, but told Sporza Wiggins attempted to play down criticism.

"Bradley says a lot about himself. He's an interesting guy. 'I know him well enough to take it with a grain of salt. The funny thing is, when I made that decision, he initially agreed with it, and now he doesn't.' [I love Bradley. He was great for us. He's entitled to his opinion, but I don't judge myself by other people's scenarios. He's on TV and he's a critic. I look in the mirror and judge for myself and listen to those around me whom I trust. He is an interesting person, but I don't care what Bradley thinks."

Ineos came into the Tour not only as the defending champion, but also as a team that has won every year since 2012 with the exception of one victory. This year's race was as lukewarm as 2010, when Wiggins himself led the team to a collapse and had to chase a stage win. Brailsford admitted that the blame for this year's performance lies entirely on his shoulders, but he and his backroom staff needed time to analyze where they went wrong.

"You win seven championships in eight years, you need a kicker once in a while," he said.

"We pulled Egan out today. He got off to a very good start. It was great, but then there was a period of time where he wasn't playing at his usual level and he was really spinning his wheels for a couple of days. After the rest day we decided to see how he was doing, but yesterday he was a little sore and didn't feel himself at all."

Brailsford was specifically asked if there was a problem with the team's preparation, given that they finished first and second last year and came into the race with a team that should have done better.

"I don't know if something went wrong, but I think those are different issues. I think Egan was in really good shape. Obviously, he was back in Colombia during lockdown and the others were more in Europe.

"It's important to experience everything when you don't reach the level of expectation in order to understand where you need to change and what you need to do to improve. You also need to have respect for your competitors. I've won this race many times, but sometimes you lose. "