Sir Bradley Wiggins: I couldn’t see hope or joy

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? the History Bureau Putin and the Apartment Bombs Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts With the European Athletics Championships the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport And the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists More Than The Score from the BBC World Service.

1:05Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

1:16Hello, I'm Anna Foster and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world. I'm disappointed in him. A deal done four times and then you go home and you see just attack a nursing home in Kiev. I said, what the hell was that all about? I was still in an induced coma in hospital when the world was defining me. But I was still 15 years old and I did not know who I was. How do we design AI that will not harm people? I love singing and so my goal was always to do better and better at it. Al-Shabat is weak compared to their past.

1:58still they are a very serious challenge to the security of the country. Today we are spending trillions on war and peanuts on peace. For this interview, I met the British cycling champion Sir Bradley Wiggins, who made history as the first Briton to win the Tour de France. In a deeply personal conversation, you're going to hear about the struggles behind his extraordinary success, the abuse that he's revealed that he suffered at the hands of an early cycling coach, the complex relationship with his jealous and absent father, and the strain of really growing up in the public eye. He also tells me what it was like to face accusations of doping while at the height of his success, something which he has always denied, and his descent into drug addiction after he retired from competitive sport in late 2016.

2:49Across his career, Sir Bradley won a total of eight Olympic medals, five of them gold, including one on home turf in London in 2012. Bradley Wiggins arrived at Hampton Court knowing he could become the most decorated British Olympian ever. As the penultimate rider to go in the time trial, he had to wait his turn. But then finally, it was time for Wiggins to show exactly why he's the greatest cyclist in the world. So here he comes. Bradley Wiggins is on his way. Can he win a seventh Olympic medal and a fourth Olympic gold? Well, in just less than an hour, we'll find out. Some had been concerned that Wiggins would be tired after his efforts in France.

3:31They needn't have worried. By the time he finished, he'd secured a lead of 42 seconds. It's golden gold for Bradley Wiggins. Wiggins was Olympic champion once again. What a month it's been. I won the Tour de France and the time show in London at the Olympic Games. and that's it now. It's never ever going to get any better than that. I mean, it's phenomenal. He won BBC Sports Personality of the Year that same year and in 2013 he was knighted for his services to sport. His personal style became almost as well known as his cycling and he was renowned for his signature sideburns and love of mod culture.

4:10By 2016 he was Britain's most decorated Olympian but in September of that year Health records released by hackers showed that he'd obtained an official medical exemption due to asthma to allow him to take a banned substance. It then emerged that a mystery package had been delivered in a jiffy bag to his team doctor before a race in 2011. Two investigations failed to confirm what was in that package, but one did conclude that Wiggins and his team crossed an ethical line and used the drugs for performance enhancement and not for medical purposes. Both Sir Bradley and his team at the time, Team Sky, strongly refute that claim and deny any wrongdoing.

4:54He's always maintained that he was the victim of a smear campaign and still has no idea what the bag contained. Today, it's how he's dealt with the setbacks that he's faced that makes him proud. I may have won many medals, he says, but that alone doesn't define me. Free from addiction for a year, he's now really focused on what comes next with the help of therapy and the support of his family. Ultimately, there's a 13 year old boy still under there that's incredibly traumatised and ashamed and embarrassed and emasculated. and he was just masked and disguised by this ego that took over, who could win Olympic golds and win a Tour de France and rock up a sports personality in a late 70s dandy-looking David Bowie suit and a silly haircut and kind of that was my disguise really and my veil.

5:49But underneath it all is still this insecure little kid at 13 who had everything taken from him, didn't have a father figure around, and his father was murdered. He was a missus every day, you know, who was his hero, who when he met was, you know, anything but his hero. So it's so layered.

6:11Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Sir Bradley Wiggins. There's such a lot to unpack and it's a constant unpacking, you know. You know, some days I think I'm there with it and I've got all the answers and then other days I kind of go back two steps. it's a constant work in progress, you know. But one thing, having done the book, obviously I started writing in January and it was kind of all down on paper by April and then I've had three or four months to go back and kind of read over bits, although I struggled to read it once it was down on paper. But, you know, not much has changed in my general thinking of each subject over the last few years.

6:51It just, I suppose it makes more sense to me now and there's a period of acceptance that I have to accept the things that have happened and in chronological order and it's kind of as I remember it, if you like. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does make sense. No, it does make sense. It makes perfect sense because what you do through the book is, as you say, you take these subjects and you unpack them. And I wonder, because I've never written a book like this and most of us probably never have. when you're going through it and you're going back through life and you're looking at some of the the most difficult experiences that you ever went through things like the sexual abuse for example from your coach how do you decide whether or not to put that in how much you say about it what words you choose yeah I mean that's a difficult one I think so I did an interview with Alistair Campbell uh three years ago for Men's Health magazine and I had no intention of talking about that subject with him.

7:53No intention, no plans of ever talking about that. You know, it's something I'd concealed for 25, 30 years and the shame that was attached to it. And I'd been using the night before, before I did that interview. So I was feeling a little bit fragile and a bit emotional anyway. A lot of self-hatred at that time in using. It was something that I was kind of become accustomed to and I never thought I would get out of it. I was a functioning addict at that time. And I remember thinking towards the end of the interview, I need to tell someone about this in, you know, not what I was doing as a coping mechanism for it, but what I felt at that time that was in my head that was going around in my head that was causing me a great deal of stress in order.

8:37I had something I had to get off my chest. I was living a lie. And so I said towards the interview, you know, one of the other major factors, Alistair, that caused me to have these behavior patterns and display this personality and this character in public that didn't help me was the fact that I was groomed by my first coach. And that kind of raised his eyebrows. And then from that, he said, what, sexually? And I said, yes. And that was the first time I'd ever told anyone about what had happened. And we didn't go into much detail after that. He didn't ask. He didn't press me for detail. but it was like a weight had come off my shoulders the minute I did that.

9:18Now in not going into detail with that at that time and giving any more detail, when it was printed, it opened a wave of kind of press articles and things like that, particularly from the Daily Mail. And some of them were the insinuation was that I was lying and it was what a bizarre statement to make without adding any context to it, which I could probably see there was some plausibility in that. But so from that moment on, I kind of felt like I was I had to kind of go and see through really and make sense of it all. But all it did was was maybe spiral even more, really not going through the correct channels in doing that.

9:59So it wasn't till about a year and a half on from that interview that I did another interview with the Sunday Times magazine. and that sparked four other people to come forward who were also victims of this same gentleman. And that was, again, that caused me to spiral even more after that because it was confirmation for me. I always thought I was the only one. And so it's been a journey in that sense on this particular subject, despite all the other subjects and things that are in the book. And I'm here today, and going back to your initial question there, why write it now? It was a chance, you know, a year into sort of being a better version of myself and cleaning my act up to get all this down in my own words, in my own story, in detail.

10:49Something I didn't do initially when I came forward with that allegation, as it were. you talk about having your own voice which again i think is a really interesting thing because we're all just so surrounded by the media the newspapers the radio programs the tv and people will think well if you want to go and do an interview you can but there have been occasions through your career where you've you've clearly wanted to say something yourself so for example in 2011 you go into the book about the story about the jiffy bag and what i think comes out from that is almost Just things that you wanted to say, having a voice that is yours for the first time.

11:31Yeah, I think, you know, as time's gone on with perspective, being the version of myself that I am with a lot more clarity and facts to hand. You know, I'm in a better position now to articulate my truth and my story in my own words and do it very thoroughly as well, which the book does. rather than sort of just being put on the spot in certain occasions under an extreme amount of stress and pressure and and and so I think I think the book does that perfectly it does it in my own words with context with perspective and a lot of time passed as well yeah and you talk as well about how difficult it was to have well as you put it the whole load of insinuation just hanging over your head and for an athlete as successful as you were that suggestion that you were somehow not clean that you were doping it is such a huge thing to to not be able to refute in your own words at the time yeah but um you know I was put in a position where I had to prove a negative and um you know the story that ran after that was full of innuendo um um you know supposition and it kind of just grew really and it was a very sinister act as well.

12:53There was a lot going on behind the scenes and continues to this day. And one thing I will say on that is I think the truth will come out at some point through no doing of my own. I think the story will evolve. I don't think it's a dead story yet. I think that as time passes and maybe very soon that the truth around and surrounding that time will eventually come out. Do you think that enough people have cared for you during your career, have had your best interests at heart and have been there to support you at the moment? I think probably not, certainly in a sporting sense. But I don't know if they're duty bound to do that.

13:35Other than maybe from a medical standpoint, there's obviously a duty of care, which every person deserves and, you know, as humans. But aside from that, I think there are times and periods where I should have, I'm responsible for my own life and should have took responsibility for my own life. So it's not something that I sit looking to blame anyone. I'm 45 years of age. And the day I won the Tour de France, I was 32 years of age. So I'm a grown man, you know. And I think I should have took, first and foremost, I should have took more responsibility for my own care and looking after myself and should not have been dependent on anyone else.

14:14So I wouldn't say that, no. I would say that the responsibility ultimately falls with me. Yeah, the reason I ask that is because it's such a difficult world when suddenly everybody, I was going to say everybody knows you, but actually everybody thinks they know you. And everybody thinks that they've got ownership of a small part of you, which is why I wondered again about the book. And when you're so honest and when you get into so much detail, is it because you feel that you have to after being in that position? I think there's a bit of everything. I think having been in the limelight for 20 odd years now, since I won my first Olympic gold in Athens in 2004, I think growing up in the public eye or under the spotlight in these different versions that I presented myself in, knowing who I was in those moments and the perception that I was displaying and portraying at times, I think now has been an opportunity to tell, be the teller of my own story as I am today.

15:23You know, far more wiser, grown up, if you like.

15:32And yeah, I think it's been telling my own story as I am today, I would say. Yeah. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. With the European Athletics Championships, the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place, 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport.

16:25And the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action, bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

16:50I find it really striking in the book. I was going to say when you talk about your kids, I mean, they're not kids anymore. or they're grown up now, but when you talk about what they mean to you and about the moments you've had with them, and in the end how their presence, their existence almost saved you, it was almost that love for them that helped you turn the corner, do you think? I would say it was probably the other way round. It was probably their love for me. Because there was periods where I couldn't see anything really, any sort of hope or joy or, you know, I think it caused a lot of pain to a lot of people.

17:32And it was, you know, they parented me for many years. And I suppose that one of the positives of the last 18 months is that dynamic has slowly shifted the other way again. The pendulum has shifted in that without really trying or pushing in that I've reestablished the hierarchy as it should be, as it were, you know, in a parental role and being able to be more apparent than I was in those years when I was really struggling. But yeah, I think there was certainly, you know, their display of love and how much I was really hurting myself and them shone through at certain times. And it's still painful today for me, looking back, now accepting that I'd caused that at times.

18:26But, you know, they don't hold it against me. And they understand that I wasn't, you know, what I was going through, really, and what I was putting myself through. But there was times that they had given up, really, and thought that I would never, you know, get back to where I was pre kind of addiction and stuff. 10 years ago now, back in 2015, one of the interviews that you did, it had a feature in it with children who were inspired by your success. And now you look at Ben, your son, who was also inspired by your success, who was, you know, riding himself now. Yeah. When you look at that, I mean, that must make you proud.

19:10Does it make you concerned? I wonder, you know, what do you feel when you see him doing so well? No, I mean, he has done a lot of that off of his own back and his own... I mean, he was inspired by lots of people, not just me, but he, you know, I'm proud of who he is as a person. You know, when I'm with him now, we talk about cycling, we talk about his career and what he's... But Ben, the person, and my daughter as well, you know, the shit there, they surpassed me um as as the person when person i was when i was 18 19 years of age 20 years of age um you know and and outwardly i i had it all at 20 years of age i had olympic medal world title um and a whole prospering cycling career ahead of me but um you know ben has far more and bella has far more than i ever had at that age in in social skills who they are as people and what they've experienced and what they've witnessed in life.

20:13And so from that standpoint, you know, I'm proud of who they've become as people rather than maybe their sporting achievements or academic achievements in either of them's case. Yeah, they sound really special. And you're clearly very, very proud of them, which is a wonderful thing. I wonder, just to end really, to go right back to where we started at the beginning, because you said there are good days and there are bad days. And of course, I think that's perfectly natural. And I wondered what you were planning next. And it sort of seems a strange question in a way, but as somebody who went from such a goal orientated career, where every day you're thinking, what am I doing next?

20:54What am I trying to achieve? Is that still in you? Or is it just about one day at 10? I mean, it still is within me. My goal is to keep rising and keep growing as a person. You know, I suppose my personal growth has been taken, you know, at times it's easy to put that to one side and think I'm there. But my personal growth is kind of goes back two steps every now and again and goes forward five. But I'm taking clinical steps now, as it were, that I remain in the same place, you know, in the next five years and don't creep back to old ways. um you know i i did start therapy early this year which was scraped the surface really in many ways um particularly how many sessions i did um but i'm off to america in a couple of weeks time to do quite an extensive intensive um four-day um trauma counseling um overall kind of deconstruct my whole personality and brain and whatever and and i don't quite know what it entails or what it's going to entail until I get there.

22:02But that's the first step I've took in terms of really, really ensuring that I never drift back. Yeah, because as you said, particularly when you're dealing with something like addiction recovery, the ability to slide is always just a fingertip away really. Yeah, and I think it's the reason, the causes as to what makes the slide really. and you know ultimately there's a 13 year old boy still under there that's incredibly traumatized and ashamed and embarrassed and emasculated and you know he was just masked and disguised by this ego that that took over who could win olympic golds and go at olympic you know win a tour de France and, you know, Rob Cupper's sports personality in a, you know, in a late 70s dandy looking David Bowie suit and kind of mask it off with, you know, comedy and drinking and, you know, a silly haircut.

23:05And kind of that was my disguise, really, and the veil. But underneath it always still, you know, this insecure little kid at 13 who was, you You know, had everything taken from him, you know, who didn't have a father figure around, whose father was murdered, who misses every day. You know, who was his hero, who when he met was, you know, anything but his hero dislike. And so it's so layered. And yeah, here we are today. I'm here, which is the main thing and in a great place fundamentally. Yeah. When you look at your achievements, and there've been so many of them, just actually being here, you know, writing the book, having the conversation now.

23:47I know it doesn't necessarily compare to Olympic medals and world titles, but actually that's a real achievement. Yeah, no, it does. You know, ultimately, you know, Olympic medals. I mean, they mean nothing, really. I mean, it's the process you go through that I hold dear today. You know, the process of application and applying yourself day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, dealing with disappointments along the way, dealing with setbacks, you know, dealing with highs, lows that I try and take into normal life. and that ability to apply myself to something, I take into whatever I'm doing now on a daily basis.

24:30And so that's one character trait that I see as a positive. But, you know, along the way in doing that and having the ability to do that, you know, I won a load of hat full of Olympic medals and the Tour de France and whatever along the way. But it doesn't define me, you know, and I think that's kind of the main thing now is what next. And that's what I'm focused on.

24:57Thank you for listening to the interview from the BBC World Service. You'll find more in-depth conversations on the interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including episodes with the tennis icon Martina Navratilova, the author Sir Philip Pullman and Brazil's President Lula da Silva. Until next time, bye for now.

25:29If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. With the European Athletics Championships, the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place, 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport.

26:14And the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action, bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.