Bradley Wiggins has expressed mixed emotions at hearing Lance Armstrong confess to doping during his interview with Oprah Winfrey last week.

The Olympic gold medalist said that the scandal was "heartbreaking" for cycling but insisted that the American deserves his public shame.

"It's heartbreaking for the sport and then the anger kicks in. It was difficult," Wiggins told reporters.

"By the end of the hour and a half, I had the best feeling in the world. Part of me didn't want to watch it. The fan in me didn't want that perception of him as an amazing athlete to be broken.

"Then I got quite: 'You deserve everything you got.' So within two hours of watching the whole thing, the emotions were up and down. By the end I didn't feel any sympathy for him at all."

Wiggins, who finished in third place behind a victorious Armstrong in the 2009 Tour de France, went on to say that he felt proud telling his son that he was beaten by a cheat.

"I had to explain it to my son because he'd won the same race his dad had won," Wiggins added.

"When he started welling up about his 13-year-old son, and him asking what's all this about. I never have to have that conversation with my own son as his father's won the Tour clean.

"There's this element of being quite smug about the whole thing. Watching him suddenly cave in after all these years of lying so convincingly, there was a lot of anger, a lot of sadness and I was slightly emotional as well, if I'm honest."

Wiggins also revealed that his wife could not watch the interview and had to leave the room.