Sir Bradley Wiggins has revealed that Lance Armstrong reached out to help during his recovery from being a “functioning addict” who did “a s***load of cocaine”.
Wiggins, 45, has opened up on the extent of his self-harm post-retirement in his new book, The Chain, and in an interview with theObserver has revealed his children feared he would kill himself until he quit using cocaine a year ago.
Wiggins, who became the first British rider to win the Tour de France in 2012, struggled to cope with his sudden fame. He went on to open the London Games that summer, where he also won the gold medal in the time trial, resulting in him being named BBC Sports Personality of the Year before he was knighted in 2013.
However, after claiming a fifth Olympic gold medal on the track in Rio de Janeiro, Wiggins struggled with his mental health, which only worsened when Russian hackers leaked his medical information in 2016, revealing his trade team (Sky) had applied for Therapeutic Use Exemptions for powerful corticosteroids before some of the biggest races of his career, including the 2012 Tour. Wiggins always denied cheating, insisting the drugs were to treat pollen allergies.
Questions were also asked in Parliament about a “Jiffy bag” allegedly sent to him after one race, and the possible blurring of ethical lines in Team Sky’s use of medicines. Wiggins’ health spiralled in retirement.
Bradley Wiggins celebrates after winning the 2012 Tour de France. Photo / Getty Images
“There were times my son thought I was going to be found dead in the morning,” Wiggins wrote. “I was a functioning addict. People wouldn’t realise. I was high most of the time for many years.
“I was doing s***loads of cocaine. I had a really bad problem. My kids were going to put me in rehab. I was walking a tightrope.
“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.”
In recent years, Wiggins has faced well-publicised financial difficulties with his company Wiggins Rights Ltd entering voluntary liquidation in 2020, with creditors including HM Revenue & Customs, which was owed over £300,000 ($671,824).
He was declared bankrupt at Lancaster County Court last year, following reports that his company had accumulated debts amounting to almost £1 million. The home he shared with his ex-wife had been repossessed and sold and he was reportedly sofa-surfing.
Ironically, Wiggins received help from one of the sport’s most notorious figures, Lance Armstrong, who has a lifetime ban from the sport after admitting to doping during all seven of his Tour de France wins.
Armstrong had also helped his former rival Jan Ullrich, the winner of the 1997 Tour, overcome his own addictions. Wiggins flew out to Aspen last summer during the Tour to appear on his podcast The Move.
“He’d been through a similar thing with Jan. They’d try and get hold of me, but couldn’t find where I was. My son speaks to Lance a lot. He’d ask my son, ‘How’s your dad?’ Ben would say, ‘I’ve not heard from him for a couple of weeks, I know he’s living in a hotel.’”
In a longer version of the interview to be published this weekend, Wiggins said he managed to quit his addiction a year ago without any external assistance.
