How Bradley Wiggins' post-cycling career sped downhill: Olympic and Tour de France hero is declared bankrupt after his marriage ended, doping row and rift with his old Sky teammates

Sir Bradley Wiggins was once a national hero and most decorated British Olympian, but over the last decade his life and career have plummeted to new lows, as the former cyclist is declared bankrupt, but where did it all go so wrong? 

Born in Belgium in 1980, the future champion had a tough childhood. His father, Gary, was a hard-drinking and drug-abusing Australian track cyclist who had wooed Wiggins’ mother, Linda, then just 17 and pregnant into moving to Ghent.

But Wiggins Senior was violent and cruel. His litany of appalling behaviour included beating Linda and smuggling a cache of amphetamines from Australia to Belgium in Bradley’s nappy. 

Within two years he had found a new woman, packed his wife and son’s belongings in bin-liners and sent them back to Kilburn, North London, where they lived with Wiggins’ maternal grandparents.

He was educated at St Augustine's Church of England High School in Kilburn, where his road to stardom on the bike started when he was 12, using £1,000 worth of compensation from being in a crash to buy his first proper racing bike. 

However his struggles continued into his teenage years when it emerged he had been sexually assaulted over a three year period by his coach at the Archer Road Club in west London.

Later named as coach Stan Knight, he would take the sporting protégé away from home for training camps, staying in a youth hostel in Litton Cheney, Dorset. But his abuser would insist in sleeping in his bed and grope him in the shower.

He met his wife, Cath, at 15, when they would enter the same competitions; then, in 2002, when they were in their early 20s, they began a romance. 

Fast forward to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and Wiggins won a gold, silver and bronze.

That feat saw Wiggins become the first British athlete to win three medals at the same Olympics in 40 years.

What followed were undoubtedly his glory years; victory after victory, high profile partnerships and sponsorships, even being named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2012. 

The same year a peculiar incident occured at Sky Sports headquarters in Isleworth, west London, not far from where he grew up, which created a rift between him and his former team. 

A precise date is unknown but it was in the glorious afterglow of a summer in which Wiggins won the Tour de France and then the time trial at the London Olympics just 10 days later. 

At the time the broadcaster has a tradition of asking high-profile guests to sign a white wall in the hospitality green room. However when Wiggins accepted the pen he chose to sign as 'Jimmy Savile'. 

Leading one senior member of staff to summarise their visitor as ‘a total p****’ and it also necessitated the hasty cleaning of that wall.

By 2016 it began to go from bad to worse; when Russian hackers Fancy Bears leaked Wiggins medical information, in what is thought to be a Russian attempt to undermine anti-doping regimes in retaliation after its track and field athletes were banned from the Rio Olympics.

However Wiggins records were immediately suspicious because of the timing of three triamcinolone injections.

Triamcinolone is a prescription drug for asthma and Wiggins’ records say he had a number of Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for asthma inhalers as far back as 2008.

But just days before the 2011 and 2012 Tours, and again just days before the 2013 Giro d’Italia, Wiggins had injections of triamcinolone that required a TUE because the drug is banned in competition.

Cyclists have been accused of using the drug to gain a physical advantage because it is a slow-release steroid that aids weight loss — something that can be important to riders when contesting the climbs of the grand tours. 

UK Anti-Doping investigated the allegations, but the 14-month investigation was eventually closed after they were unable to find enough evidence about what was contained in a Jiffy bag sent to Sir Bradley's tour bus.

Since retiring from all forms of professional cycling in December 2016 there has been a murky story for Wiggins, one of High Court appearances, divorce and bankruptcy.

By 2018 an investigation into Wiggins by the Digital Culture Media and Sport committee found he had used the controversial drug triamcinolone to enhance his performance and not for medical reasons.

Following this devastating report he said: 'You watch your family suffer, and it's terrible. It nearly killed my wife. She ended up in rehab over it. I'm at home having to deal with it.

'Because she's bi-polar she has this fear of shame, people watching her all the time.

'You couldn't say that at the time because you've asked for it, because you've won the Tour de France. No, I didn't ask for that actually. I only asked for a fair trial.'

He added: 'What I should have done is murder someone because then I'd have had proper rights. I'd have had more rights as a murderer.'

In 2020 Wiggins and his wife Cath announced they were separating in a Tweet writing: 'It is with deep sadness my wife Cath and I have decided to separate. Our two children remain our priority and we ask for privacy at this time. Brad & Cath.'

This week Sir Bradley Wiggins has been declared bankrupt and could be forced to hand over his medals and trophies after falling into financial difficulties.

The eight-time Olympic medallist was declared bankrupt at Lancaster county court on June 3, according to The Times, following years of money troubles with numerous business ventures over the years.

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 appointéd 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.