Brave Sir Bradley Wiggins opens up about vile sexual abuse he suffered as a child at hands of elderly cycling coach
SIR Bradley Wiggins has opened up about the vile sex abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of an elderly cycling coach.
The eight-time Olympic medallist and Tour de France winner bravely shared his story with Under the Surface podcast host Smithy.
Wiggins, 44, claimed he was sexually assaulted over a three year period between the ages of 13 and 16, by a 72-year-old coach.
His alleged abuser, who has since passed away, quickly welcomed the youngster into a cycling club called Archie Roe’s after training at the Hayes Bypass.
The legendary athlete’s father had been a member at the same club, which saw 12-year-old Wiggins hailed in too.
“I never really loved cycling, I just became obsessed with it. It was the closest I could get to my dad,” revealed the former Olympian.
However, a lot of “very f***ed up” incidents allegedly started happening shortly after joining the club.
“The biggest thing that influenced my life the most, which I’ve come to terms with, is I was sexually abused when I was 13-years-old by my first coach,” Wiggins told podcast host Smithy.
“I met my first coach when I was 12, I watched the Olympic games on telly, in Barcelona. Chris Boardman won on the Lotus bike, I watched it, and that was the day I took up cycling.
“My mum made me watch it, I was inspired by it, I just thought I’d love to do that, 12 years later I won that event with Chris Boardman trackside, in Athens. My first Olympic gold.“
After being snapped up by his father’s former club, Wiggins was introduced to the coach.
“I was introduced to a guy that night who was the club coach, so I joined the club that night – no one asked if I wanted to – they said ‘this guy’s the coach he’s going to look after you,” he claimed.
“He was a 72-year-old ex-military policeman, and he felt my pulse, he had this thing about feeling kids’ pulses, he said he’d never felt anything like the strength of my pulse before.
“I realise now this was all part of manipulation, but he said I was going to be the greatest cyclist this country had ever produced.
“And I believed him, he used to tell everyone this wherever we went.
“The contradiction is he was the one who made me fall in love with myself, but he also sexually abused me for three years in between the ages of 13 and 16.
“And because of what he was saying, that’s why he got away with it.
“Because I had the absence of a dad, because I was in this club that he was the coach of, and because I was following in the footsteps of my dad and it was all about ‘Wiggo’s boy’, I felt like I could never tell anyone.
“It’s a very strange thing. It really f***ed me up that did.”
The iconic cyclist claimed he was abused with other boys.
“It’s insidious,” he alleged.
“Another incident, it’s the only other one I’ll talk about because there’s so many, I had 36 incidents.
“But the other one, the minor one that started there and all escalated very quick.
“He would have us two in the showers showing us how to clean our scrotum, because that’s quite an important area when you’re riding a bike, because it can get inflected, saddle sores.
“So on the basis that ‘this is what you need to do as a professional bike rider, you need to look up’, but he would hold our scrotums and show us the particular scrubbing method.”
Bradley continued: “There were lot of incidents, waking up naked and not going to bed with pajamas, waking up naked but not remembering waking up in the night and taking them off.
“But, you know, so there was a lot of…It’s very, very, very f***ed up.”
The Tour de France winner opened up about his path to healing, and how finding other alleged victims has been transformative.
He said: “First time in my life, someone’s actually validated me.
“So it’s from a point of view, that’s something I can now divulge to something like this because I’m further along the journey through validation of someone else.”
Wiggins also believes they were drugged.
“I reckon I was drugged with this guy. I know we were drugged,” he claimed.
On the impact his alleged abuser had, the former athlete said it was what “held me back the most”, and the root of “all my self-worth issues”.
“I had wished I never started cycling, because I would never had met this guy,” he said.
“But now, I would never change a thing, it has made me the person I am today, and I’m glad I am who I am today.”
He added that he hopes by speaking out it will encourage victims to talk to each other because that helped him the most.
It comes as the gold medal champion was declared bankrupt by a court last month.
Bradley’s home was repossessed and sold off and trustees have been appointed to seize his assets – including his medals and trophies.
But he has now got a new job hosting a Tour de France podcast with disgraced cycling star Lance Armstrong.
It comes after the Olympic cyclist suffered a litany of financial problems with his business ventures.
Bradley’s lawyer Alan Sellers said his converted £975,000 barn in the north Lancashire countryside has been repossessed and sold.
His business Wiggins Rights Limited entered liquidation in 2020 owing £650,000, including £313,447 to HM Revenue & Customs.
Liquidators made a £1million claim against Bradley, which he disputed.
A claim for £760,373 made a year prior had been escalated, with administrators, who were seeking money from to pay back an overdrawn director’s loan, “reviewing the company’s books and records”.
In September that year administrators’ documents revealed Sir Bradley entered into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) in order to stave off bankruptcy.
Sir Bradley previously said the financial difficulties are a “very historical matter” that “involves professional negligence” by others and has “left a s***pile with my name at the front of it to deal with”.
He continued: “Happens to a lot of sportsmen while they’re doing the grafting and on that there’ll be a number of legal claims from my lawyers left, right and centre as a result.”
Sir Bradley's career
Sir Bradley Wiggins is one of Great Britain’s all-time sporting greats.
He started cycling at the age of eight.
The athlete won five Olympic gold medals during his career, starting at the 2004 Games where he won the Individual Pursuit.
At the 2008 Olympics he won TWO golds and then at the London Olympics in 2012 won the Road Time Trial.
He memorably sat upon a gold throne after his victory.
His final gold medal came at the 2016 Games in Rio.
Arguably the greatest achievement of his career was becoming the first ever British winner of the Tour de France with his victory in 2012.
He would be crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year that same year.
In 2017, Spear’s Magazine cited Sir Bradley’s net worth as £13million.
It was a figure that had him only behind Andy Murray and Justin Rose in Team GB’s class of 2016.
There were lucrative brand deals with companies such as Fred Perry and Skoda, the latter of which was a seven-figure deal.
But in 2022, liquidators made a £1m claim against Wiggins – something he disputed.
A claim for £760,373 made a year prior had been escalated, with administrators, who were seeking money from to pay back an overdrawn director’s loan, “reviewing the company’s books and records”.
In September that year administrators’ documents revealed Sir Bradley entered into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) in order to stave off bankruptcy.
The cyclist was declared bankrupt at Lancaster county court on June 3 2024.