While Bradley Wiggins admits that it is "just a sport," the 2012 Tour de France winner also says that the ongoing coronavirus crisis could begin to affect the lives of athletes.

Speaking on the first episode of the new season of Eurosport's podcast The Bradley Wiggins Show (opens in new tab), Wiggins said that the cancellation or postponement of most upcoming professional cycling races is "the least unimportant," but he said the riders risked wasting their winter training for their various goals.

"If something like the Tour de France goes [cancelled] at the expense of the virus, it would be a great shame for the athletes given the amount of effort they put in," the now-retired athlete said.

"This is their livelihood. We keep saying it's just a sport, but when you consider the financial impact on the sponsors and the teams, this could be devastating to them."

Wiggins also questioned whether Paris-Nice, which ended with the seventh stage on Saturday instead of running to Nice on Sunday, should have been run at all.

"The coronavirus crisis escalated day by day to the point that we had to cancel the final Paris-Nice stage. With the crisis continuing in Italy, we were trying to celebrate it by organizing a major bicycle race in Nice. [No toilet roll, no paracetamol ...... Seeing as the Premier League (soccer) has been postponed, one wonders why Paris-Nice was held.

Wiggins also revealed that he recently spoke with former Team Sky teammate Mark Cavendish, who has moved to Bahrain McLaren.

"I spoke to Cav last week and he was just about to train in Nice. He was training pretty hard for the season. I knew how big of a year this season was going to be for him coming back in Bahrain and he really wanted to score points and make a statement."

"It's frustrating from an athletic standpoint because it's been a big, big year for a player like Cav.

"For a player like Mark Cavendish, from a personal athletic standpoint, it's unfortunate that something like this would ruin his opportunity," Wiggins said.