Tour de France winner and five-time Olympic champion Sir Bradley Wiggins says he became a cocaine addict in the years after his career.
The 45-year-old Briton told the Observer, external about the extent of the addiction he developed after his retirement from cycling in 2016, and explained how his family members feared for him.
“There were times my son thought I was going to be found dead in the morning,” said Wiggins.
“I was a functioning addict. People wouldn’t realise – I was high most of the time for many years.”
Wiggins won Olympic gold medals on the track at the Athens, Beijing and Rio de Janeiro Games, and also won the road time trial at London 2012, two weeks after becoming the first British rider to win the Tour de France.
Since his retirement, Wiggins has spoken about his father’s jealousy and being groomed by a coach as a child, while he was also declared bankrupt in June 2024.
Wiggins revealed how disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, who has reportedly offered to pay for Wiggins’ therapy,, external has helped him during his recovery.
He said the American, who was stripped of seven Tour de France titles for using performance-enhancing drugs, had “worried about me for a long time” and that Armstrong speaks to Wiggins’ son Ben – also a professional cyclist – “a lot” about his father.
Speaking about his cocaine addiction, which he quit a year ago, Wiggins added: “I realised I had a huge problem. I had to stop. I’m lucky to be here.
“I already had a lot of self-hatred, but I was amplifying it. It was a form of self-harm and self-sabotage. It was not the person I wanted to be. I realised I was hurting a lot of people around me.
“There’s no middle ground for me. I can’t just have a glass of wine – if I have a glass of wine, then I’m buying drugs. My proclivity to addiction was easing the pain that I lived with.”
Wiggins also spoke to Cycling Weekly, external about how the ‘Jiffy-bag’ scandal still affected him.
Two investigations – by the UK Anti-Doping Agency (Ukad) and the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee – failed to prove what was in a medical package for Wiggins that was delivered to Team Sky’s then doctor at a race in 2011.
However, the report by MPs on the DCMS committee said Wiggins and Team Sky “crossed an ethical line” by using drugs allowed under anti-doping rules to enhance performance, instead of for medical reasons.
“I would love to know one way or another what actually happened,” Wiggins told Cycling Weekly.
“The amount of times I then got asked ‘what was in the package?’ But I had absolutely no idea.”
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