Sir Bradley Wiggins has bravely opened up about sexual abuse he experienced from his coach as a child in the hope of helping other victims.
The Tour de France winner and Team GB eight-time Olympic medalist claimed he was sexually assaulted 36 times over a three-year period, between the ages of 13 and 16.
The 44-year-old, speaking on the Under the Surface podcast, said he met the ’72-year-old ex-military policeman’ Stan Knight after being inspired watching the cycling at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
Mr Wiggins said the abuse, also allegedly endured by other boys training alongside him, became the root of ‘all my self-worth issues’ and left him wishing he had never started cycling ‘because I would never have met this guy’.
“But now, I would never change a thing, it has made me the person I am today, and I’m glad I am who I am today,’ he added.
In the candid interview, Mr Wiggins said finding other victims had helped him process the experience as the ‘first time in my life someone’s actually validated me’.
He said that he hopes by sharing his story others might talk to each other about their experiences.
Speaking to host Smithy on the Under the Surface podcast, aired Tuesday, Mr Wiggins described how his alleged abuser welcomed him to a cycling club called Archie Road Club in Acton, London after training at the Hayes Bypass, Hillingdon.
He said that he was following in the footsteps of his father, n cyclist Gary Wiggins, who had also spent time at the club.
Wiggins said he had been inspired at the age of 12 after watching the 1992 Barcelona Olympics on the television.
‘Chris Boardman won on the Lotus bike, I watched it, and that was the day I took up cycling,’ he said.
‘I never really loved cycling,’ he admitted. ‘I just became obsessed with it. It was the closest I could get to my Dad.’
Mr Wiggins said that he joined the club and was soon introduced to his alleged abuser, who has since died, in 2003.
‘No one asked if I wanted to. They said: “This guy’s the coach. He’s going to look after you.’
‘He was a 72-year-old ex-military policeman, and he felt my pulse. He had this thing about feeling kids’ pulses.
‘He said he’d never felt anything like the strength of my pulse before.’
Mr Wiggins claimed he was taken in by the coach, recognising the signs of abuse later.
‘I realise now this was all part of manipulation, but he said I was going to be the greatest cyclist this country had ever produced.
‘And I believed him, he used to tell everyone this wherever we went.’
‘The contradiction is he was the one who made me fall in love with myself, but he also sexually abused me for three years in between the ages of 13 and 16,’ he said.
Mr Wiggins said he ‘felt like I could never tell anyone’ about the abuse that followed, ‘because I was following in the footsteps of my dad and it was all about “Wiggo’s boy”.
He claimed there were 36 incidents of abuse, sharing how we was allegedly shown in the showers ‘how to clean our scrotum, because that’s quite an important area when you’re riding a bike, because it can get infected, saddle sores’.
‘There were lot of incidents, waking up naked and not going to bed with pajamas, waking up naked but not remembering waking up in the night and taking them off,’ he continued.
He added that he believes he was drugged during the horrific campaign of abuse.
He previously told The Times Magazine that Knight would take him away for a training camp to a youth hostel, where they would sleep in the same bed and he allegedly abused him in the shower.
‘I had wished I never started cycling, because I would never had met this guy,’ he said.
‘But now, I would never change a thing, it has made me the person I am today, and I’m glad I am who I am today.’
Mr Wiggins said he had since met other abuse victims and found catharsis in sharing his story.
‘First time in my life, someone’s actually validated me,’ he said.
‘So it’s from a point of view, that’s something I can now divulge to something like this because I’m further along the journey through validation of someone else.’
Last month, Sir Bradley Wiggins was declared bankrupt at Lancaster county court, according to The Times.
Wiggins Rights Limited, a company owned by Wiggins, his former wife Cath and his mother Linda, entered voluntary liquidation in 2020 with debts of £650,000.
These debts later increased to just under £1 million in 2022 and by November 2023, creditors claimed this had not been paid, which they warned would likely lead to him being declared bankrupt.
Trustees could now be appointed to seize Wiggins’ assets, with fears that his Olympic and Tour De France medals and even his Sports Personality of the Year trophy could be stripped from him.
Mr Wiggins appeared on Under the Surface alongside host Smithy on the episode released Tuesday to speak about his experiences as a child.
The podcast is supported by the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), aiming to ‘drive conversations and challenge the stigma surrounding mental health’.
The Archer Road Club in Acton has since shut down, The Times reports.
If you suffered abuse as a child and would like to speak to somebody, you can contact The Survivors Trust on 0808 801 0818.
Children and young people in need of help can reach Childline on 0800 11 11 or visit the Childline website.