Once upon a time — for everyone — it was Sir Bradley Wiggins, national hero and the most successful British Olympian ever. Today, however, the 44-year-old former cyclist fell at the foot of those slopes that he has always devoured. A turbulent history of him, since childhood, culminating in a proven fraudulent bankruptcy that could force him to lose his trophies to repay debts. Five Olympic gold medals, six world titles, a Tour de France and the “sports personality of the year” cup which was awarded to him by the BBC in 2012: all this risks disappearing in an instant. The glorious years are now a nightmare.
Divorce after retirement and bankruptcy
Since retiring from racing (December 2016), Wiggins has had a dark history of High Court appearances, divorce and bankruptcy. In 2020 the Englishman and his wife Cath (engaged since they were kids) announced their separation on Twitter. Together they raised two children and — with the cyclist’s mother, Linda — also took care of their business, that is Wiggins Rights Limited, entered voluntary liquidation in 2020 with debts of £650,000, which subsequently increased to just under £1 million. In November 2023 creditors claimed they had not been paid, hence the bankruptcy court declaration of Lancaster.
The violent father, the difficult childhood
Born in Belgium in 1980, Wiggins had a difficult childhood. Father of him, GaryAustralian cyclist who drank a lot and used drugs, he was a violent and cruel man. She beat Bradley’s mother Linda and smuggled amphetamines from Australia to Belgium using her son’s nappy. After finding another woman, he also decides to pack his wife and son’s belongings in some rubbish bags and send them back to Kilburn, north London, where the two would live with their maternal grandparents.
Raped at 12 by the coach
Bradley studies at St Augustine’s Church of England High School of Kilburn and there he began cycling at the age of twelve. His life, however, spares him nothing: for three years, as he himself revealed much later, he was sexually harassed by his coach: «I never completely accepted it – he will say -. All of this has had an impact on me as an adult. I isolated myself. I was a rather strange teenager and I think the passion for cycling was born from these adversities.”
When Wiggins was «Sir»: the great triumphs
What lifted Wiggins up was Cath’s love. In 2002 the two began their story, two years later – at the 2004 Olympics – Bradley wins a gold, a silver and a bronze, the first British athlete in 40 years to win three medals in the same edition of the Games. Triumphant years followed, full of successes and rich sponsorships. In 2012 he became the first Briton to win the Tour de France. Only ten days later, he won the AI time trial London Gamesthus obtaining the fourth Olympic gold medal of his career.
The doping accusation and the beginning of the end
In 2016, however, the situation begins to go from bad to worse. In fact, it happens that Russian hackers from the IT group Fancy Bears they leak medical information on Wiggins, whose records are immediately reviewed due to three injections of triamcinolonea drug prescribed to him for asthma and for whose therapeutic use the cyclist enjoyed a series of exemptions (it is banned for athletes because it facilitates weight loss). However, suspicions arise about the timing of three injections, two a few days before the 2011 and 2012 Tours, and another close to the 2013 Giro d’Italia. British anti-doping investigated for 14 months and then dismissed the matter due to lack of evidence. But from that moment the climbs for Wiggins became increasingly difficult. Now he risks having only the memory of them left. The trophies could be used for something else.
