The British have arrived at the Tour de France.

Four stage wins have come from riders in the British Olympic team, almost every press conference is conducted in English and a British sponsor is making waves and dominating the scene.

Bradley Wiggins takes the yellow jersey into the Pyrenees for today's peloton from Limoux to Foix and remains two minutes and five seconds ahead of compatriot and team-mate Chris Froome after yesterday's stage was won dramatically by German Andre Greipel.

Wiggins' dominance, however, underlines an extraordinarily Cool Britannia moment in the history of the race, yet the questions that have dogged every recent winner still persist.

How did he get this good? Why is Team Sky so dominant? Has he got something to hide? The inquisitor-in-chief in this scenario has been Irish sports writer Paul Kimmage, whose shadow, even though he is watching from afar, hangs over the race.

Last night, Wiggins, after showering the press corps and his online sceptics in expletives a week ago, was in more conciliatory mood when asked if he would publish results of the International Cycling Union (UCI) blood-passport tests on him.

"I did it in 2009, and people still said I was doped," he said. "I think it's a no-win situation. I've spoken to the doctors in the team about doing that, but they have said to me that the blood passport is not clear-cut on whether there's doping or not doping. There's so many variables in it.

"If I was to do that, certain people would scrutinise it and say either 'it's too up and down,' or 'it's too stable.'

"But it's something I would like to do, because I have nothing to hide, so I don't see why it shouldn't be out there."

He added: "Sometimes I think for certain people that whatever you do will never be enough unless they came and lived with me for 12 months. I'm not prepared to do that, certainly not for Kimmage.

"The test of time is more important and the continuation of the work the UCI are doing. I have lost count of the times I've been tested this week for blood and urine."

Like Wiggins's explanations, Kimmage's suspicions have to be put into context. The serial betrayal of the fans by recent Tour winners has left scars. Confronting such scepticism is part of the healing process, as David Millar acknowledged after his canny victory in Friday's stage to Annonay.

"I am an ex-doper," the 35-year -old said. "I don't think there's any point in hiding that. I think I have a duty not to forget where I have come from. I am a representative of our sport. We are in a great place now but I don't think we should forget the past."

Yet it doesn't help Wiggins' polemic when Team Sky, who founded themselves on a platform of zero tolerance towards doping, send out mixed messages by hiring the Belgian, Geert Leinders as team doctor.

Leinders has long been attached to professional cycling teams, the most prominent of which was the Dutch-sponsored Rabobank cycling team. Leinders, team doctor to Rabobank during the Michael Rasmussen controversy, left the Dutch team in 2009.

Rasmussen was thrown off the 2007 Tour within sight of victory.He was said to have lied to his team about his whereabouts for out-of-competition doping controls.

Speaking in February last year, Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford said: "There's no place for drugs in the sport and we like to think that, with a few other teams, we're at the forefront of trying to promote clean cycling.

"That philosophy will always stay. If we thought it wasn't possible then I'd be out."

However, in interviews in the Dutch press this year, Leinders appeared to differ. "Zero tolerance has nothing to do with cycling," Leinders said in May. He also admitted that he was aware that EPO had been used at Rabobank.

Brailsford has categorically refuted any suggestions Leinders, (who is not on this year's Tour) is involved in doping, or that Sky are doping, but admitted that there may be a "reputational risk," and told the media an investigation into Leinders' history would be carried out.

Leinders was actively working for Sky at races last month when he was with the team at the Criterium du Dauphine, which Wiggins won. He was also team doctor at Paris-Nice in March and the Tour of Romandie in April. Wiggins won both races.

In February last year, Brailsford said: "When you're trying to lift performance, and you look at the staffing side, if you want experience of professional cycling you have to go back a long way to find people over 40 who haven't been tainted in some way by many of cycling's past problems."

After his stage win, Millar, the repentant ex-doper, paid poignant tribute to Tom Simpson's untimely death, due to a combination of amphetamine abuse and heat exhaustion in the 1967 Tour, thus acknowledging the context of his sport.

Wiggins will never convince the doubters, but after all the Tour has been through, and for all Sky's clumsiness, it may be time to have a little faith.

o Jeremy Whittle is co-author of Racing Through The Dark: the Fall and Rise Of David Millar, published by Orion books (orionbooks.co.uk)' and can be followed on Twitter at @jeremycwhittle