Sir Bradley Wiggins has admitted that he no longer rides a bike “because I don’t like the person I became when I was on it”, and that his only memory of standing on the Champs-Élysées after winning the 2012 Tour de France stems from watching the moment back on television.
Speaking as part of ‘Imposter Syndrome’, a new six-part BBC documentary series set to air next week, the five-time Olympic gold medallist also said that he was told as a teenager by his estranged father Garry that he would “never be as good as your old man”, a “haunting” comment Wiggins says helped propel him to the success he achieved over the next 15 years of his career.
“I don’t ride a bike anymore because I don’t like the person I became when I was on it,” the 43-year-old tells Rob Adcock during the revealing interview.
“I can’t imagine achieving anything like that now in a sports perspective because I’m not the same person I was. I’ve grown now. I have all the answers. That all stems from my sporting career and greatness stems from an oddness about me which wasn’t resolved from childhood.
“I was the most confident bike rider when I was on it. But step off the bike and I had to step back as Bradley Wiggins, because the bike was where I was most comfortable and gave me all my confidence in my life.”
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Wiggins also delved into his decision, as the media glare intensified in the wake of his phenomenally successful 2012 season, to craft a ‘persona’ in order to deal with the increased fame and pressure.
“When I came off the bike and had to sit on the throne in front of a bank of cameras, I’d have to give it victory signs, be funny, and perform,” he says, referencing his iconic celebration following his victory in the time trial at the London Olympics.
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“I have no memory of standing on the Champs-Élysées or on any Olympic podium. The only memory I have of it is watching it back on TV.
“When we were at my last Olympics in Rio [in 2016], the TV camera came on me during the national anthem and I could see myself on the big screen, so I pulled my tongue out.
“I would do that quite a lot in those important moments, really. I was so self-conscious of being looked at.”
The former Team Sky leader continued: “The minute I stepped off that rostrum I was back as myself and I didn’t have the veil, the cycling, the bike.
“I had to be me, the person, and suddenly I felt, like, on my own. Which is why I then started growing the sideburns, the hair longer. Put funny suits on. It was all a distraction from actually being me.”
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During the interview, Wiggins also shed further light on his fractured relationship with his father Garry, a renowned Australian six-day track racer, who was absent for most of his son’s childhood and teenage years and died in 2008 following an altercation at a party.
“A lot of my cycling career was about running away from my past. It was a distraction,” Wiggins, whose own son Ben won silver in the junior time trial at this year’s world championships in Scotland, says in the documentary.
“And a lot of it is intrinsically linked around my father and the lack of a father figure as a child. I can remember writing notes on the back of photos I had of [Garry] when I was maybe 12 or 13, writing him letters.
“To this person that was out there somewhere, that maybe wasn’t out there, ‘cos we’d heard all sorts of stories about him being murdered and in prison.”
Wiggins talks to son Ben during the 2022 British track championships (Will Palmer/SWpix.com)
Wiggins Snr eventually reached out to Bradley when he was 17, as his results at junior level began to attract attention in the cycling press.
“He rang up my nan’s house. He wanted to be part of the success and make up for all those years, and then I eventually met him two years later, when I was 19,” Wiggins says.
“He had no money and he came over to Belgium to a race I was doing, and I’ll never forget it. It was probably the hardest day of my life, actually, meeting him. Within a week he said to me, ‘You’ll never be as good as your old man’. The sort of jealousy crept in. To this day I remember clearly where I was when he said it.
“I was in the centre of the track in Ghent in Belgium. I’d done quite a good performance on the track and everyone was cheering for me. I was racing against men and shining. And he couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t handle the attention on me.
“He said to me, ‘Just don’t forget, you’ll never be as good as your old man’. He squeezed my arm and came in quite close to me so no one else could hear.
“It was quite a haunting experience. From that day on there was this drive for so long after that to be better than him. That’s what spurred me on in 2012.”
In his 2008 autobiography, In Pursuit of Glory, Wiggins recounts a similar event during a track meet in Australia, where the then-19-year-old raced the Madison as part of his preparation for the Sydney Olympics.
“By the end of my race – we finished a very credible second – he was surrounded by a pile of ‘tinnies’, absolutely hammered and intent on slagging me off in front of everybody and telling me what I had done wrong and how he would have done it differently and won. ‘You got it all wrong, sunshine, your old dad would have won, Brad. No worries. We used to beat everybody in Europe. I was champion of Europe. Did I ever tell you that, Brad? We were the best, nobody could bloody touch us’,” Wiggins wrote.
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Wiggins’ detailed interview with the BBC comes after the eight-time world champion spoke out for the first time earlier this year about the abuse he suffered as a child by a cycling coach.
Speaking to the Times, Wiggins recalled how Stan Knight, who died in 2003, would take him on training camps to a youth hostel in Dorset aged 12, sleep in the same bed, and abuse him in the shower, accusations repeated in the account of another victim.
Knight was a coach at the Archer Road Club in London and has attracted complaints from more former members than just Wiggins and the other rider the newspaper spoke to, with the family of another boy also reporting concerns to British Cycling.
Wiggins explained how his abuse began with “minor acts” presented under the pretence that Knight’s actions were simply to help with sporting performance.
Following the allegations, British Cycling offered a statement saying “abuse of any kind has no place in sport” and urged anyone with “concerns about non-recent or current abuse to report them” to the governing body’s safeguarding team.
11 thoughts on “Sir Bradley Wiggins: “I don’t ride a bike anymore because I don’t like the person I became when I was on it””
Feel for him. And equally it
Feel for him. And equally it explains a lot – he was usually a crap post-race interview, never quite saying what you’d expect him to say, or do the usual thing of thanking team mates properly. It always looked like an act. Hope he eventually finds who he is – that usually comes with age (or maybe it’s just that so many of my mates are going through mid-life rebirths at the moment…)
Woggo has had a terrible life
Woggo has had a terrible life, I only wish him the best. He spends a lot of his time talking about how he doesn’t want anything to do with cycling any more though, time I think would be better spent doing something else rather than dwelling on the past. But that is probably easier said than done.
The problem is that Brad’s
The problem is that Brad’s still got to earn a living and people, like me I guess, are still interested in hearing what he has to say.
I saw one of his recent live shows and he seemed… like he was opening old wounds for us. Some of it’s pretty dark and hard to hear and not something he’d want to go over and over if he had a choice.
I hope he finds a way forward and aways has a place in cycling for all the right reasons.
we likened those shows to
we likened those shows to they were his therapy sessions, that we were paying for, and that for him just talking about it, rather than hiding it away and not talking about it, helps him deal with it. As they werent the kind of celebration of his cycling achievements we were expecting for sure . Whether for someone who says they dont like being the centre of attention to then do that,and thats a good thing for them, I dont know.
I thought he’d said he does still ride occasionally, just not as a regular thing anymore, because his pro-riding career is so bound up with the impact it had on his family and his relationship with his dad and then the abuse too, its not something he finds he gets enjoyment from.
Heartbreaking how a truly
Heartbreaking how a truly world class athlete (and actually, good guy) like Bradley Wiggins can still be haunted the spectre of his messed-up dad. Even to the extent that his mind has blanked out the moments of celebration of those huge successes.
He’s clearly in a bad place, I wonder if Steve Peters or someone could help him? Or maybe it has to be someone from outside the sport? Either way he deserves to feel good about himself. I also suspect there may be “demons” to do with that Jiffy bag or his kenacort prescription, but as far as we know there was nothing actually illegal there, it was a TUE (no doubt similarly many other big riders too) but he was cynically singled out for exposure by Russian hackers still smarting at the exposure of the huge Russian state doping system, facilitated by the KGB. They were the scum who gave young teenagers hardcore drugs for performance gains, up to and including a 15yr old girl figure-skater at a recent Olympics. They’re not fit to lick Brad’s shoe cleats.
Whatever ails you Brad, sending you love from a fellow cyclist whose arse you kicked going up the Col de Rates on a Graham Baxter camp when you’d recently won Junior Worlds Pursuit Gold at age 18. Team Brite, 1999?
You were a great rider then, you are a great man now. Be proud of your son and the way you’ve supported him, something you never had from your dad.
Russians??
Russians??
The fancy bears group are
The fancy bears group are Russian state hackers who smeared western sports people after the Russians got kicked out of the Olympics for systematic doping , Sochi Winter Olympics (in Russia) was totally bent there’s a documentary about it
I hope he can get his head
I hope he can get his head together. Between his dad and his former trainer who abused him, he had a very difficult upbringing. I can understand why he doesn’t want to ride any more.
If only drivers had this
If only drivers had this level of self awareness.
“I don’t ride a bike anymore because I don’t like the person I became when I was on it”
I used to see him from time
I used to see him from time to time in my local Waitrose when he lived locally. He always found the time to chat to me and was always a really nice guy, quite shy in a way.
So from Face Book to Twitter
So from Face Book to Twitter x and now here, its the Feel sorry for jIFFY, EVERY Buisness to charity, belly up, to brocken marrage, tolal fail, soon read about him back to drunk, was even droped from motor bike in Tour