Bradley Wiggins has revealed that he has been offered financial aid from a somewhat unexpected source – former cycling legend turned disgraced drug cheat Lance Armstrong.
Wiggins, who won a previous national record eight Olympic gold medals, was one of the greatest cyclists ever produced by Great Britain, winning titles on both the track and the road across his career.
Despite his success on the track, though, a company controlled by Wiggins was reported to have debts totalling around £1million, and after failing his individual voluntary agreement (IVA) to pay back the money he owed, was declared bankrupt.
The former cyclist was reportedly left homeless and said to be sleeping at various addresses including that of his ex-wife, and was believed to have come close to selling his Olympic medals.
As well as his financial issues, Wiggins has also had his own mental health battle, struggling with drinking after his new-found fame early in his career, and revealing he was sexually abused as a teenager by a coach.
Now, though, he has told The High Performance Podcast that he has been given a generous offer for help from his former Tour rival Armstrong.
Bradley Wiggins was the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France doing so back in 2012
The cyclist has won five gold medals during his Olympic career, featuring at five different Games
Lance Armstrong (right) has offered to help pay for Wiggins to stay in a facility in Atlanta
Armstrong was previously a seven-time Tour de France winner, and widely regarded as 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 for 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 bit disproportionate to what some people do in this world. He 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 declined the offer of help from Armstrong, before admitting that he is considering accepting.
‘I wanted to get some order back in without talking to anyone. I didn’t want to just go in and say, “Fix me.” Now I know what I want to talk about with a therapist.’
In a candid interview, Wiggins opened up on the issues that had plagued him both during and after his career at the top of the sport.
Armstrong (left) was a former seven-time Tour de France winner before having his titles stripped
Since retiring from cycling in 2016 after the Olympics Wiggins has drifted on a rough sea
He spoke about the family issues that he had struggled with, with his father leaving when he was two. He would meet up with his father in 1999 and stayed with him in his native Australia in 2000 before reportedly becoming disillusioned by his drug and alcohol abuse.
However, he admits the most traumatic episode in his life came in his teens, when he was ‘sexually abused for three years’.
‘But what caused me the most pain is the fact that I was sexually abused for three years by my first coach between the ages of thirteen and sixteen,’ Wiggins said in the podcast.
‘When I started to accept that, after I was in my thirties, I realized that it was partly the reason why I was so successful.
Cycling was the biggest distraction I could have for all those years. But when I retired from cycling, I started to hate cycling because I blamed the sport for the fact that I had met that man. It took me five years to come to terms with that after ignoring it for 30 years.’
However, he then added that as a result of the personal journey he had been on he has been able to find some positivity and optimism for the years to come.
‘There always seemed to be something that was causing me issues. I’ve realised now that there’s never going to be a clear path. There’s always going to be something happening,’ Wiggins said.
‘I was one of those people who wallowed in self-pity, especially after my career, asking why it always happened to me.
Wiggins has spoken candidly about the abuse he suffered during his teenage years
‘I’ve realised that these things only become inter-related if you let them affect your behaviour. I was one of those people who would drink and I’d be late for something or not turn up for something and it would affect my behaviour.
‘Now I’m in the best place I’ve been for 44 years of my life. That’s largely down to the fact I’ve been to the a***-end of the world.
‘I’ve been in dark places at times, for various reasons. I’ve experienced extreme highs with my success, and other aspects of my life, but I’ve also experienced, like most of us, the other end of the spectrum.
‘I’ve spent five years sorting it out in my mind. I’ve finally taken 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.’