Background and career
Sir Bradley Marc Wiggins (born 28 April 1980) is a British former professional road and track racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 2001 and 2016. He became Great Britain's most decorated Olympian, amassing eight medals across five Games, and remains the only rider to have won World and Olympic titles on the track and road. In 2012, he was the first British winner of the Tour de France. The son of the Australian cyclist Gary Wiggins, Wiggins was born to a British mother in Ghent, Belgium, and raised in London from the age of two. He competed on the track from the early part of his career until 2008. Between 2000 and 2008 he won ten medals at the track world championships, of which six were gold: three in the individual pursuit, two in the team pursuit and one in the madison. His first Olympic medal was a bronze in the team pursuit in Sydney 2000, before winning three medals including the gold in the individual pursuit at the Athens 2004, and two golds in the individual and team pursuit at the Beijing 2008. On the road, Wiggins turned professional in 2001 but made it his focus from 2008. Initially viewed as a time trial specialist and rouleur, he showed his ability in stage races when he came fourth in the 2009 Tour de France; he was promoted to third after Lance Armstrong's results were annulled in 2012. He signed with the newly formed Team Sky in 2010, and in 2011 claimed his first victory in a major stage race in the Critérium du Dauphiné, as well as finishing third, later promoted to second, in the Vuelta a España. In 2012, Wiggins won the Paris–Nice, the Tour de Romandie, the Critérium du Dauphiné, and became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France and the time trial at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Wiggins won Vélo d'Or award for best rider in 2012, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award and a knighthood as part of the 2013 New Year Honours. In 2014, he won gold in the time trial at the road world championships, and founded the WIGGINS cycling team. Wiggins returned to the track at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, and in 2015 he set a new hour record with a distance of 54.526 km (33.881 mi). In 2016, he won a further world championship in the madison, and gold in the team pursuit at the Olympics, his fifth successive medal winning appearance at the Games. He retired from all forms of professional cycling in 2016. During his career and afterwards he faced allegations that he exploited a loophole in cycling's anti-doping regulations to use a performance-enhancing drug, injections of the powerful corticosteroid, triamcinolone. He did not receive any bans or suspensions in relation to doping during his career. In 2018, the British House of Commons Committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport concluded that Team Sky had used triamcinolone in 2012 under TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) "to prepare Bradley Wiggins, and possibly other riders supporting him, for the Tour de France. The purpose of this was not to treat medical need, but to improve his power to weight ratio ahead of the race."
Wiggins was born on 28 April 1980 in Ghent, Flanders, Belgium, to an Australian father, Gary Wiggins, and a British mother, Linda. His father lived in Belgium as a professional cyclist. His father left the family when Wiggins was two. Wiggins moved with his mother to her parents' house in Villiers Road, Willesden Green, northwest London, then to a Church Commissioners flat at Dibdin House estate in neighbouring Maida Vale. He was educated at St Augustine's junior school and then St Augustine's Church of England High School in Kilburn, where his mother was a secretary. He has a younger half-brother, Ryan, from his mother and her partner Brendan. Brendan and Linda separated when Wiggins was in his late teens. Football was his first passion and he was an Arsenal fan, although he would watch rivals Tottenham Hotspur play because his friends supported them. He discovered cycling when his mother told him to watch the television coverage of the individual pursuit final of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, which Briton Chris Boardman won. She explained it was one of the events at which his father had been successful. He watched the rest of the Olympics and fell in love with cycling and the Olympics itself.
In 1992, aged 12, he entered his first race, the West London Challenge 92, on the unopened A312 dual carriageway in Hayes, west London. Later that year he broke a collarbone in a road accident. He received £1,700 compensation for his injuries. He gave his mother £700 and used the rest to buy his first racing bicycle. "At 12", he recalled, "I told my art teacher, I'm going to be Olympic champion, I'm going to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour." He joined the Archer Road Club, where his father had been a member in the late 1970s. He raced at Herne Hill Velodrome and on the road around Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. He gained domestic sponsorship from Condor Cycles's Olympia Sport and then Team Brite. He represented Westminster in the London Youth Games as a teenager. In recognition of his early achievements, 2010 he was inducted into the London Youth Games Hall of Fame. At 16, he won the 1 km (0.6 mi) time trial at the 1996 junior national track championships at Saffron Lane sports centre in Leicester. Selectors invited him to train at weekends at Manchester Velodrome. After leaving school he enrolled on a BTEC foundation course in business studies, but left due to cycling commitments. At the 1997 junior national track championships he won the one-kilometre time trial, 3 km (1.9 mi) individual pursuit, points race and scratch race. He was the only British competitor for the 1997 junior track world championships in Cape Town, coming 16th in the individual pursuit and fourth in the points race. His breakthrough came in June 1998, winning the three-kilometre individual pursuit at the junior track world championships in Cuba, aged 18. The following week, he retained his titles at the junior national track championships in Manchester. He represented England at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, finishing fourth in the individual pursuit, and was a member of the team that won a silver medal in the team pursuit, his first senior medal. He became a full-time Lottery-funded athlete, with a grant of nearly £20,000 a year (equivalent to £39,000 in 2025). In 1999, he began training with the Great Britain team pursuit squad and rode the PruTour – now known as the Tour of Britain, his first stage race at that level. In October he competed in the track world championships in Berlin, coming fifth in the team pursuit, and with partner Rob Hayles, came tenth in the Madison, securing qualification for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. At the Olympics he won a bronze medal in the team pursuit, beating France in the bronze medal match, and came fourth in the Madison with Hayles. In October 2000, he took silver in the team pursuit at the track world championships in Manchester, losing to Germany in the final by under half a second.
In 2001, he signed for the Linda McCartney Racing Team, a British professional road cycling team, but it disbanded after internal problems. He was briefly seen in Sigma Sport colours after the collapse of the Linda McCartney team, but then secured further lottery funding, and began racing for the British national team. He came second in the prologue of the Tour of Rhodes, two seconds behind Fabian Cancellara of Mapei–Quick-Step, before winning the general classification in the Cinturón a Mallorca and Flèche du Sud. In September he crashed his bike, requiring two metal pins in his right wrist. Two weeks later he went to the track world championships in Antwerp, managing seventh place in the individual pursuit and consecutive silver in the team pursuit.
He joined the French team Française des Jeux in 2002, relocating to Nantes, and soon became homesick, finding it a huge contrast to the British Cycling set-up. At the Commonwealth Games in Manchester he won silver medals in the individual pursuit, losing to Française des Jeux teammate Bradley McGee (Australia) in the final, and team pursuit, beaten by Australia, who set a new world record with a time of three minutes and 59.583 seconds. At the track world championships in Copenhagen, he came fifth in the individual pursuit and won a bronze medal in the team pursuit. Wiggins was frustrated with his result in the individual pursuit at the world championships and became disillusioned with his future with Française des Jeux. British Cycling then enlisted the newly retired Chris Boardman as his mentor. In May 2003, Wiggins made his Grand Tour debut at the Giro d'Italia. On the 18th stage he was eliminated from the race, finishing outside of the time limit in a group of 53 riders. In the summer he competed in the track world championships in Stuttgart, qualifying fastest in the individual pursuit, before beating Russia's Alexei Markov in the first round, setting up a place in the final against Australia's Luke Roberts. He beat Roberts by 0.736 seconds to win the gold medal, his first senior world title. He also came away with a silver medal in the team pursuit, beaten by Australia in the final, who broke their own world record with a time of three minutes and 57.280 seconds. In September, he won stage one of the Tour de l'Avenir, beating teammate Benoît Vaugrenard and Rabobank's Joost Posthuma by 14 seconds. In November, he won the Six Days of Ghent with Matthew Gilmore of Vlaanderen–T Interim.
Wiggins signed with Crédit Agricole for the 2004 season, advised by Boardman, who rode for them his entire professional road career. He began training for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, at first struggling with illness and fitness, he arrived in peak form; he qualified for the individual pursuit with a time of four minutes and 15.165 seconds, an Olympic record and fifth fastest time in history. In the final, he beat McGee by over four seconds to win the gold medal. Wiggins was brought in to the team pursuit squad for the first round against France, replacing Bryan Steel, and advanced into the final, where the team were beaten by Australia, settling for the silver medal. Wiggins then partnered Rob Hayles in the Madison. With 90 laps left of the 200, Hayles crashed with Dutchman Robert Slippens, returning after a few laps. They lost a lap to their rivals, but with 30 to go Wiggins attacked, and they regained the lost lap, moving into second place. They lost points in the final sprint, moving them down to third, taking the bronze medal with 12 points, behind Switzerland on 15 and Australia on 22. Wiggins became the first British athlete in 40 years to win three medals at one Games, the last being Mary Rand at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. On 31 December 2004, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2005 New Year Honours, for services to sport.
