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."
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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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