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2012 winner aims to be at race ‘in some capacity’ despite bankruptcy, writes Amy Sedghi
Sir Bradley Wiggins has said that he has now found a “happy balance” with cycling, and will be at the Tour de France in some capacity this year, adding that he felt more comfortable in his own skin than ever before.
The former Tour winner and five-time Olympic champion was declared bankrupt at Lancaster County Court last week, with his lawyer telling the Daily Mail Wiggins had “lost absolutely everything”, had been left “sofa-surfing” and was “without a penny”. Wiggins had been in an Individual Voluntary Arrangement since July 2020 in an attempt to pay back creditors.
Speaking exclusively to Cycling Weekly at the National Cycle Show last week, the 44-year-old refused to answer questions on his finances, instead discussing his personal relationship with the sport, and what it is like being a parent to a professional cyclist. His son, Ben, rides for Hagens Berman Jayco.
“I’ve always been around cycling, and as much as I’ve tried to push it away in the past, I realised that it’s always going to be there,” he said. The comments reflect Wiggins’s struggle with the abuse he suffered when he was 12. In 2022 he confirmed he had been sexually abused by a former coach. In recent years there have been angry rants about how much he hates cycling, but also nostalgic trips down memory lane on speaking tours around the country.
“You fall in and out of love with things, or you have enough of it, or at times it becomes an obsession like it did for me,” he said of cycling. After a period of time where he wouldn’t even watch any racing, he says that he’s now found “a happy balance”. Wiggins will be back at this year’s Tour de France in some capacity, although right now he says he can’t share specific details due to an embargo.
He thinks there should be more of a welfare system in place for those leaving or retiring from the sport: “but how that’s set up and funded, I don’t know.
“You stop and no one ever contacts you again,” he said plainly.
The first ever British winner of the Tour de France and five-time Olympic gold medallist, Wiggins believes it was always his “destiny” to become a cyclist, following in the footsteps of his fat
