Bradley Wiggins credited Lance Armstrong for supporting him during a tough period (Image: Getty Images)
Sir Bradley Wiggins has revealed that cycling drug cheat Lance Armstrong funded a spell of therapy for him. At the London 2012 , Wiggins, fresh off winning the Tour de France, struck gold in the cycling time trial event and enshrined himself as one of the most popular athletes in Britain.
Fast forward 13 years later, Wiggins has admitted to struggling with retirement, developing a which resulted in him Alan Sellers. However, the British sporting legend is trying to get back on the saddle to resolve his personal issues. He found an ally in Armstrong, who, according to USADA, was a “serial cheat” who led “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”. While Wiggins does not condone or sympathise with Armstrong’s own fall from grace, he admitted the American has been hugely supportive.
Speaking to , Wiggins said: “I’ve really got to know him over the past eight years, and he has been there for me in recent times. He packed me off to this extensive therapy centre, paid for it all.
“He had a very similar upbringing to me – a fatherless upbringing. ‘You can’t will this stuff away,’ he told me. ‘You have to sort it out.’ On the human side, he has been very good for me.”
He added: “You always have to put this disclaimer in with Lance, ‘It’s not to condone what he did’. Yeah, he took drugs and all that. That’s a different part of it, very polarising. It’s an open wound in cycling. But in terms of me being here, being alive, he has really helped. He has done the same for Jan Ullrich. The three of us grew up without a father.”
In 2012, Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France triumphs by USADA. After initially denying the accusations and charges, in 2013, the Texan admitted to using erythropoietin (EPO), which stimulates red blood cell production, testosterone, human growth hormones, and diuretics, as well as taking part in blood doping and falsifying documents saying that he had passed drug tests.
Bradley Wiggins has been honest about his struggles (Image: Getty)
As a result, in 2018, he had to pay $5m (£3.87m) to the US government after admitting that he was taking part in the illegal activity while he was sponsored by the US postal service. The Texan, after going through his own difficult times, has been trying to help Wiggins come to terms with his previous traumas.
Many of Wiggins’ issues can be traced back to the horrific sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his first coach Stan Knight, who died in 2003. Reflecting on his early life, Wiggins said: “The contradiction is that the coach who abused me was my first male role model in cycling. I had grown up with an absent father, and so this man instilled a confidence in me as a bike rider. Wherever he went, he would tell everyone: ‘This kid’s going to be special.’
“It kind of offset what was going on behind the scenes. There were other kids at the club it was happening to as well. We were normalised to the behaviour, made to feel there was nothing wrong with it.
“You’re only 13, but it leads to a really dark period. Within three years of retiring in 2016, I was a drug addict. And a lot of it was to do with this recall of my childhood.”