Bradley Wiggins’ son feared cocaine addiction would kill him as Lance Armstrong steps in | Other | Sport

Former Tour de France winner and decorated Team GB Olympian Sir Bradley Wiggins has candidly revealed that his son was scared of finding him dead during the height of his cocaine addiction. Wiggins, 45, revealed this year that he turned to drugs following his retirement in 2016, admitting to becoming a “functioning addict.”

His struggles were compounded by financial issues. Having previously boasted a £13million fortune, last year, a company controlled by Wiggins was reported to have debts totalling around £1m. After failing his individual voluntary agreement (IVA) to pay back the money, he was declared bankrupt. He was also said to have been living at various addresses since his divorce from his former wife, Catherine, in 2020.

The four-time Olympic gold medallist has now explained how his children, Isabella and Ben, had tried to put him into rehab. That was despite Wiggins becoming adept at hiding his problem from the public.

“There were times my son thought I was going to be found dead in the morning,’ Wiggins told The Observer. “People wouldn’t realise. I was high most of the time for many years. I was doing s***loads of cocaine. 

“My kids were going to put me in rehab. I was walking a tightrope. I already had a lot of self-hatred, but I was amplifying it. It was a form of self-harm and self-sabotage. I was not the person I wanted to be, and I realised I was hurting a lot of people around me.”

Wiggins now insists he’s clean and has also accepted financial help from disgraced former cyclist Lance Armstrong.

The American, who was stripped of seven Tour de France titles amid the doping scandal that rocked the sport, has been in contact with his former rival’s son and even offered to pay for Wiggins to go to a rehab centre in Atlanta.

On The High Performance Podcast last year, Wiggins spoke about the offer, saying: “Lance is a good man. I’m not saying that to condone what he did, we all know that. He has a heart deep down.”

Wiggins was once considered an icon of British sport, but his stock plummeted in 2018 over allegations against the cyclist and Team Sky. The scandal related to a race in 2011 and the delivery of a mystery medical package in a jiffy bag.  

While both the UKAD investigation and a parliamentary committee report were unable to definitively determine the contents of the package, Team Sky were deemed to have “crossed an ethical line” by MPs. Both the cyclist and his team strongly refuted claims of any wrongdoing.