Far from making headlines for his glorious career, which includes winning a Tour de France, eight Olympic medals and seven Track World Championships, Bradley Wiggins surprised by revealing the hard history he went through at age 13, when he was sexually abused by a coach. I was abused by a coach when I was younger, when I was about 13, and I never fully accepted it,” he said in an interview with Men’s Health UK magazine. He added: “It all impacted me as an adult… I buried it.” The multi-champion on the bicycle, who is now 41 years old and retired from professional activity, had a complex childhood. In fact, when referring to the abuse he suffered, he explained that he did not feel in a position to be able to tell it because of the bad relationship he had with his stepfather.
Bradley Wiggins confessed that he was abused by his coach at age 13. Photo: Reuters (Matthew Childs)
“My stepfather was pretty violent with me, he used to call me bad for using lycra and stuff, so I didn’t think I could tell him. It was lonely… I just wanted to get out of the environment. I was a pretty weird teenager in many ways and I think cycling came from adversity,” he reflected. In that sense, Bradley said that the relationship with his father, the also Australian cyclist Gary Wiggins, was difficult because he left his home and was killed in 2008. “I never got answers when he was murdered in 2008. He left us when I was little, so I first met him when I was 18. We resumed some kind of relationship, but then we didn’t talk for the last two years before he was killed,” he said. He added: “He was my hero. I wanted to prove myself. He was a good cyclist, he could have been very good, but he was a wasted talent. He was an alcoholic, a manic depressive, quite violent and was taking a lot of amphetamines and (sports) drugs back then.”
A 2012 that marked him for better and for worse: Bradley Wiggins conquered the Tour de France and hung the gold medal in the time trial at the London Olympic Games. Photo: Reuters
Stardom came to Wiggins in 2012, a year that marked him for better and for worse. It is that the Briton was consecrated in the Tour de France, the maximum tournament that any cyclist can win, and hung the gold medal in the time trial at the London Olympic Games. However, he says that year he fell out of love with cycling.” I was thrust into this fame and adulation that came with success… I am an introverted and reserved person. I didn’t know who I was, so I adopted a kind of veil, a kind of rock star veil. It wasn’t really me… It was probably the unhappiest period of my life. All I did was win for other people and the pressures that came from being the first British winner of the Tour. I really struggled with that,” he said.
