What (bad) happened to Wiggins, from cycling champion to homeless

In 2012 Sir Bradley Wiggins had six Olympic medals around his neck, the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France. He was chosen to ring the bell to open the London Olympics in front of an audience of millions, was named Sports Personality of the Year and then knighted for his services to cycling. The public called him “Sir Wiggo”. He was a rock star.

Twelve years later, last week, Wiggins was declared bankrupt in Lancaster County Court. He has lost everything. The house he shared with his ex-wife is up for auction, and he has nowhere to sleep.

“It’s a total disaster… He’s lost absolutely everything. His family home, her house in Mallorca, his savings and investments. He doesn’t have any money. It’s a very sad situation.”his lawyer, Alan Sellers, told the Daily Mail. “I don’t know where he slept last night, I don’t know where he will stay tonight or tomorrow night. She doesn’t have a home.”

Wiggins returned to the desperation in which he grew up, with his Australian father, also a cycling champion, who drank heavily, beat his mother and left them when he was just two years old. In 2022 revealed that she was sexually abused at age 13 by her 72-year-old coach.

Wiggins wore the mask of the extroverted type for years, but by his own admission he was “a veil. I was catapulted to fame… But I’m an introvert. I was adopting the coolest person I could as a defense mechanism. A distraction. I was hiding.”

Wiggins he won four world titles and eight Olympic medals during his careerbecoming the third most decorated British Olympian in history and, at one point, the highest-earning Briton in sport.

He retired in 2016 while undergoing a doping investigation. In 2020, Wiggins divorced Cath, his wife of 16 years and mother of his two oldest children. The stress of the doping investigation had pushed their relationship to the limit. Shortly thereafter, he began a relationship with public relations expert Laura Hartshorne. The couple had a child but later separated.

Wiggins in 2021 said he was studying to be a doctor and he also tried rowing, boxing and studying to be a social worker. He worked as a columnist and commentator. His company Wiggins Rights Limited went into voluntary liquidation in 2020. It has now collapsed.

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