Wiggins's performance gave Team Sky a dream start to their debut Grand Tour, with another British rider, David Millar, of the Garmin-Transitions team, also figuring highly, finishing seventh.
The Garmin-Transitions team was the most battered.
On the Garmin-Transitions team, injured riders did not want to quit the race, either.
"He was really fighting it," Matt White, a race director for Farrar's Garmin-Transitions team, said.
Jonathan Vaughters, the team manager for Zabriskie's Garmin-Transitions team, said the whole episode had been nothing short of awkward, with the sport's dark past crashing the party.
"To have a guy like Pellizotti going out, it's good for morale," said David Millar, a rider on the Garmin-Transitions team.
Jonathan Vaughters, the manager of Zabriskie's Garmin-Transitions team, said Landis "had his demons," but he could not explain why Landis made his allegations.
Matt White, a race director on the Garmin-Transitions team, put the Contador-Schleck situation this way: "For every kilometer more than there was last year, I think Contador is going to put even more time into Andy.
The Garmin-Transitions team manager Jonathan Vaughters said he thought the investigation was healthy for cycling because it kept a spotlight on the effort to clean up the sport.
