Cycling legend Sir Bradley Wiggins has revealed how he was sexually groomed by a coach as a teenager. The 41-year-old Olympic gold medal winner has told how he kept the ordeal from his stepfather Brendan and claimed it had affected his adult life.
Sir Bradley said: "I was groomed by a coach when I was younger and I never fully accepted that. I was such a loner. I just wanted to get out of the environment. I became so insular. I was quite a strange teenager in many ways."
He claimed he could not speak about the issue to family members so buried the pain. He admitted: "It all impacted me as an adult. I think the drive on the bike stemmed from adversity."
He made the startling revelations in a Men's Health magazine interview with former Labour Party advisor Alistair Campbell and claimed some of the issues arose from his father Gary, also a professional cyclist, who left the family when Sir Bradley was just two years-old, reports the Mirror.
His dad returned to Australia and later developed drug and alcohol addictions before being found dead from a blow to the head. His killers have never been brought to justice.
Asked why he runs away from things in life, the five times gold medal winner said: "It was to do with my dad. Never getting answers when he was murdered in 2008. He left us when I was little, so I met him for the first time when I was 18.
"We rekindled some kid of relationship but we didn't speak for the last couple of years before he was murdered. he was my hero. I wanted to prove myself to him."
Sir Bradley, who grew up in Kilburn, north London, started cycling when he was 12 years old after watching the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. Encouraged by mum Linda, he joined a club like his father in the 1970s.
However, the pair went their separate ways when Sir Bradley was in his teens. Dad-of-two Sir Bradley also split from his wife Catherine in 2020. He said he stopped enjoying pro-cycling after winning the Tour de France and London Olympics in 2012.
He added: "It was probably the unhappiest period of my life. Everything I did was about winning for other people and the pressures of being the first British winner of the Tour. I was thrust with fame and adulation that came with success. It wasn't really me.
Sir Bradley gave up professional cycling in 2016 to study for a social work qualification.
- Men's Health May edition is available from Wednesday.
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