BRADLEY WIGGINS
We catch up with Sir Bradley Wiggins in Majorca to discuss the future of British Cycling.
It’s been seven long years since the summer when Sir Bradley Wiggins transformed British cycle sport forever, but how has time changed him? We catch up with him on the ‘home’ roads of Majorca to talk youth development, playing ‘Wiggo’ and falling for the bike all over again…
The road climbs and swings from right to left as the tightly knit group enters the sun-drenched village, framed by Majorca’s plains to the west and the Serra de Tramuntana mountains to the east. Gaps begin to appear as the tarmac tips downhill and Sir Bradley Wiggins positions himself at the front: his back flat enough to rest a tea tray on, legs firing like pistons.
Wiggins may have retired in 2016 but the 39-year-old retains the same unmistakable position on the bike. He knows these roads better than most, having first arrived in Majorca at the turn of the millennium as a fresh-faced 20-year-old - the talented youngster in British Cycling’s track squad - and returning every winter to lay the foundations for the campaign ahead. Eight World Championship titles, five Olympic gold medals and a Tour de France triumph later, Wiggins is riding with CyclingPlus under Spanish sunshine to launch his latest clothing collaboration with Le Col.
“Once we got out into the lanes, I was like, ‘God, I forgot how much I actually enjoy this,’” says Wiggins after a 50km loop on the rolling roads in the north of the island. “It’s nice to just get out and ride. Not staring at a power meter but just riding and enjoying it.”
Wiggins is now, by his own admission, a fair-weather rider. “I spent years getting scarred by riding in the rain,” he says. After nearly two decades defined by training plans, diets, intervals and race schedules, Wiggins can ride when and where he wants and for how long he wants, but the transition from professional cyclist to recreational rider didn’t just happen.
“It takes a long time to let go, the feeling that you have to do it,” he says. “That’s the hardest bit. You have to step back.”
PlayingWiggo Change is a recurring theme of our interview. British cycling changed forever when Wiggins stood on the top step of the Tour de France podium in July 2012. Five days later, the kid from Kilburn opened the Olympic ceremony in London and went on to win time trial gold in Hampton Court.
The sight of Wiggins flicking Vs at photographers from a gilded throne, to the cheers of fans sporting cut-out-and-keep sideburns, became one of the enduring images of the Games. By the end of the year, he was on stage playing Wonderwall at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year after-party. He was soon made a knight of the realm. Wiggins’ priorities now, as a family man unshackled from the inherent selfishness required to be a professional athlete, are very different.
“I’m the same person as I was in 2012, but I’m very different as well,” he says. “Most people change from when they were 32 to when they are nearly 40. Your kids get older and have genuine problems in their lives, so you have to change. You evolve... I had to detach from my cycling career. I can’t walk around with an ego, wanting to be recognised, living off what I did in the past and feeling entitled. I feel normal. I don’t expect people to know who I am or what I did, and I’m quite happy with it.”
Wiggins may have changed, but the V-flicking Wiggo lives on. Before and after our interview, Wiggins is stopped for selfies by the cyclists staying in the same Port de Pollença hotel. He politely obliges, joking with the Lycra-clad riders returning from a day in the saddle, but being in the public eye isn’t Wiggins’ default setting.
“People characterise you - they caricature you - to an era they admired the most or were inspired by,” he says. “Perceptions last in cycling, you know. They meet you and want you to be ‘Wiggo’ - have a laugh and all that - but maybe you’re different to their perception.
“You still play the perception. I’ve always been like that; even when I was at school I was the class joker. I find it easy to play me - I’m the best at playing me - but maybe it’s harder to be me.”
Wiggins’ golden summer also brought unprecedented media attention. The former Team Sky rider was once described as a tiger by British Cycling’s psychologist, Steve Peters, due to his reclusive nature, but he has come to accept the responsibility that comes with the role.
“You can’t ever really step away from it,” he says. “If anything I get recognised more now than I used to but I accept that’s part of it. How you treat people when they recognise you goes a long way.”
Wiggins has come a long way since winning his first Olympic medal, a bronze in the team pursuit in 2000, and turning professional on the road with the shortlived Linda McCartney Racing Team. He went on to join Française des Jeux and started his first Grand Tour in 2003, but was eliminated from the Giro d’Italia for finishing outside of the time limit on the penultimate mountain stage.
Further success came quickly on the track, though, and Wiggins’ first Olympic title came in the individual pursuit at the 2004 Games in Athens. On the road, the Londoner showed glimpses of the huge engine that lay under the bonnet, not least with top five finishes against the clock at the 2007 Tour de France, but when Cristian Moreni tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone after stage 16 and Wiggins’ Cofidis team withdrew from the race, he questioned his future in the peloton.
Wiggins immersed himself with the track ahead of the build-up to the Beijing Olympics and, only after winning his second (individual pursuit) and third (team pursuit) Olympic gold medals, did the transition from road-riding track star to Grand Tour contender begin.
Wiggins shed 10kg in less than a year before finishing fourth at the 2009 Tour, matching Robert Millar’s overall result from the 1984 race and, after a protracted transfer saga, joined his old Team GB boss Dave Brailsford’s newly formed Team Sky. The ambition? To produce a British winner of the Tour de France in five years. But how does Wiggins reflect on his 16-year career?
“I’m proud of it but I can also see it for what it was - I feel separated enough to look at it factually.
“I don’t have that emotional attachment to it anymore, so I can look at someone doing the hour record and hope they do it for the benefit of the sport [Victor Campenaerts broke Wiggins’ existing mark in April], and not think that I want to hang onto that record for as long as possible.”
Wiggins rarely did things by halves as a rider and the final years of his career were punctuated by a series of highs and lows, from winning the world time trial title, claiming the hour record and undergoing yet another transformation to have a tilt at Paris-Roubaix, to a public spat with Chris Froome, starting only one more Grand Tour with Sky and the ‘jiffy bag’ scandal.
Next generation While Wiggins may have left the peloton as a rider, his name remains through the Wiggins Le Col team. The squad was initially founded to help facilitate Wiggins’ preparations for a fifth Olympic gold medal but the squad now focuses solely on developing the next generation of talent.
“That’s my legacy: youth development,” says Wiggins. “Giving them the opportunity from my legacy to thrive and hopefully go onto the bigger teams. The Skys of this world and that. I love it.”
Owain Doull, part of the victorious team pursuit quartet with Wiggins in Rio, was the first to graduate from the UCI
“I can’t walk around with an ego, wanting to be recognised, living off what I did in the past and feeling entitled… I don’t expect people to know who I am or what I did and I’m quite happy with it”