Bradley Wiggins has revealed that he has been offered financial help from a somewhat unexpected source: former cycling legend turned disgraced drug cheat Lance Armstrong.
Wiggins, who had previously won eight Olympic gold medals, a national record, was one of the greatest cyclists Britain ever produced, winning both track and road titles throughout his career.
However, despite his success on the track, a company controlled by Wiggins was reported to have debts totaling around £1 million and, after failing to comply with his individual voluntary agreement (IVA) to repay the money he owed, was declared bankrupt.
The former cyclist was reportedly left homeless and was said to be sleeping at several addresses, including his ex-wife’s, and was believed to have come close to selling his Olympic medals.
In addition to his financial problems, Wiggins has also had his own mental health battle, battling drink after his newfound fame early in his career and revealing that a coach sexually abused him when he was a teenager.
Now, however, he has said The High Performance Podcast that his former Tour rival, Armstrong, has made him a generous offer of help.
Bradley Wiggins was the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France in 2012.
The cyclist has won five gold medals during his Olympic career, participating in five different Games
Lance Armstrong (right) has offered to help pay for Wiggins’ stay at a facility in Atlanta.
Armstrong had won the Tour de France seven times and was widely considered the greatest cyclist in history, until it was revealed that he had been using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career.
“Lance has helped me a lot over the years and even more this year,” Wiggins reveals on The High Performance Podcast.
‘He wants to pay me to go to a specialized center in Atlanta. You stay there for a week and they take your phone away.
‘Lance is a good man… And I’m not saying that to condone what he did, we all know that. But it’s a little disproportionate to what some people do in this world. It has a heart deep down.
“He also has an ego as big as a house,” Wiggins adds with a laugh. “That’s why he won seven Tours. Well, not in the end.
In fact, he initially rejected Armstrong’s offer of help, before admitting that he is considering accepting it.
‘I wanted to restore order without talking to anyone. I didn’t want to just walk in and say, “Fix me.” Now I know what I want to talk to a therapist about.’
In a candid interview, Wiggins spoke about the problems that had plagued him during and after his career at the top of the sport.
Armstrong (left) was a seven-time Tour de France winner before his titles were stripped.
Since retiring from cycling in 2016 after the Olympics, Wiggins has been adrift on rough seas.
He talked about the family problems he had struggled with, when his father left when he was two years old. She would reunite with her father in 1999 and stay with him in his native Australia in 2000 before reportedly becoming disillusioned by his drug and alcohol abuse.
However, he admits that the most traumatic episode of his life occurred in his adolescence, when he was “sexually abused for three years.”
“But what caused me the most pain is the fact that my first coach sexually abused me for three years, when I was thirteen and sixteen years old,” Wiggins said on the podcast.
‘When I started to accept that, after I turned thirty, I realized that was part of the reason I had been so successful.
Cycling was the greatest distraction I could have during all those years. But when I retired from cycling, I started to hate cycling because I blamed the sport for having met that man. It took me five years to accept it after ignoring it for 30 years.’
However, he later added that as a result of the personal journey he has been on, he has been able to find some positivity and optimism for the years to come.
‘There always seemed to be something that caused me problems. Now I have realized that there will never be a clear path. “Something is always going to happen,” Wiggins said.
‘I was one of those people who wallowed in self-pity, especially after my career, and wondered why that always happened to me.
Wiggins has spoken candidly about the abuse she suffered during her teenage years.
‘I’ve realized that these things only interrelate if you let them affect your behavior. I was one of those people who drank and was late for something or didn’t show up and it affected my behavior.
‘I am now in the best place I have been in for 44 years of my life. That’s largely due to the fact that I’ve been to the end of the world.
‘I’ve been to dark places at times, for various reasons. I have experienced extreme times with my success and other aspects of my life, but I have also experienced, like most of us, the other end of the spectrum.
—I’ve spent five years working it out mentally. I finally took responsibility for my own life. I’m not in a position where I’m playing the blame game. I think my best years are yet to come.”