Cycling champ opens up about his cocaine addiction

West Australian

13-05-2025

Former Olympic champ and Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins has said he became addicted to cocaine after his cycling career and was "lucky to be here" after getting sober a year ago.
Wiggins, who retired from the sport in 2016, became the first Briton to win the Tour de France in 2012 and collected a then-British record eight Olympic medals, including five golds across four Games.
The 45-year-old's father was Australian cyclist Gary Wiggins, who suffered with drug and alcohol issues before dying of head injuries in 2008 aged 55, after a fight at a house party in Aberdeen, NSW.
Wiggins has spoken in the past of his troubled relationship with his father, who left the family when Bradley was a toddler and did not reappear in his life until his late teens.
Wiggins said his father was jealous of his talent and told him 'you'll never be as good as your old man', which Wiggins said he used as fuel to drive his subsequent successes.
In an interview with the Observer published on Tuesday, ahead of the publication of a third autobiography later this year, Wiggins described how his drug use affected his own family.
"There were times my son thought I was going to be found dead in the morning. I was a functioning addict. People wouldn't realise. I was high most of the time for many years," Wiggins said.
"I had a really bad problem. My kids were going to put me in rehab. I was walking a tightrope. I realised I had a huge problem. I had to stop. I'm lucky to be here. I was a victim of all my own choices, for many years.
"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 revealed that former cycling champion Lance Armstrong, who was stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles after being exposed as a doping cheat, had been helping him, adding: "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'. They wouldn't hear from me for days on end. I can talk about these things candidly now."
In December last year Wiggins, who has also previously described how he was groomed by a coach as a child, and was declared bankrupt in 2024, said Armstrong had offered to fund his therapy for mental health issues.
Lifeline 13 11 14
beyondblue 1300 22 4636