Bradley Wiggins: I really hope he finds happiness

I have just finished listening to Jake Humphries and Damian Hughes “High Performance” Podcast and it made me so reflective that I wanted to write some of these thoughts down, I hope it resonates with some people, and if by any stroke of luck or the function of the internet, if Bradley ever sees this I hope he sees it as the best wishes that it is meant.

I would start by saying, it may seem like I have little context or being in a position to comment on a story of sexual abuse, stardom, elite athletism or retirement from it. It’s true, I have no reference from personal experience for any of the above. What I do have, and what hit hard for me as I listened, was how Bradley is now coming to terms with historical trauma, finding a pathway through them, and ultimately being able to put all the things that have happened to him into context and using these experiences to “own” his own story and to help him create the person that he is proud of today. All these, more intangible things I found myself being able to relating to……and relating to them HARD.

Cheering “Sir-Brad” on at The National Cycling Centre (2015)

I think, listening to someone I had always had a huge amount of admiration for (he did the job I always wished I had been able to do, and I had my own baggage around why elite athlete was no longer going to be an option for me!), and who had inspired me on so many bike rides. Who I had roared on to success in Le Tour, in Olympic velodromes and TT courses and even during 6-Day events at our shared home of the Manchester Velodrome, speak so openly about his struggles just had a profound effect on me.

My heart broke for him when I heard of his realisation that some of his motivation was derived from using cycling as a “hiding place” and pouring all his energy into “the process”, whilst his teenage years were being stolen by a member of his coaching team taking advantage of him sexually. How this was all layered onto of his relationships with his Mother, Father and laterly Step-Father, showed how unravelling everything must have seemed like trying to untangle an unsolvable Christmas tree lights conundrum.

Again, I count myself as extortionately lucky that I had the most supportive, balanced upbringing from a family perspective, so I can’t imagine what home life was like for a young Brad. But, as someone who needed the help of an EMDR therapist to access my own historical more medical based trauma from childhood and then trying to pick apart the reasons why those things still affected me to this day, that I found myself empathising with him on a deeper level. And the process he is now going through to try to make sense of everything and to hopefully put those experiences in a place that allows him to find more contentment, happiness and self-worth, that’s what I really loved about listening to this part of the story.

Which took me back to a few years ago, after Bradleys retirement from competitive cycling, he was still in the midst of trying to re-invent himself as a world-class rower I think at the time. I remember back then, listening to podcasts-various, be it his own “Bradley Wiggins Show with Eurosport” or on Gerraint Thomas and Luke Rowes “Watts Occuring” or even his earlier appearances on Lance Armstrongs podcast.

As I listened to those earlier episodes, I heard someone who was able to see that the didn’t like the person he had become while he was a cycling superstar, but he didn’t really seem to know what to do with that knowledge. He was clearly very educated. He already understood a lot about some of the reasons for his behaviour, how he had used it to hide the person who he really was, to “play a caricature of myself” as a barrier, but it felt like he was just talking in theories and almost as if the newly aware Bradley was more of an evolution of the character he played rather than hearing from his true self.

Once more, I really don’t want to speak out of turn, this is simply how I heard things at the time and the feelings that I got from those interviews.

Today’s podcast was different. Very different. It genuinely sounded like a different man talking. The facade was dropped, and although some of the theorising was still there, the raw elements of his story were so much more heart-felt and seemed to let the listener into his world, where he is now and what he hopes it will look like in the future. He has been through so much, on and off the bike.

I guess my overriding feeling was one of hope: I hope that Bradley is finally able to be happier in himself. He stated that that is indeed one of the things that has finally come out of all this, he’s in a much better place, and he doesn’t wish to erase the past but to use it and put it in a place where he is comfortable in his own skin.

It was hard to hear that he had needed his own son to come to him when in a really dark place, both physically in a hotel room with the lights off and curtains drawn, and also at the bottom of his emotional and spiritual barrel. I hope that he can restore his relationship with cycling and to be able to put it in a place where it is his happy place again, but only with the need to be getting away from the stresses of everyday life, rather than running from the horrors of his youth or the self-loathing of later life.

I think that this interview really struck a chord, as I have felt my own life-journey be reflected, not by circumstance, but often by psychological wellbeing as I look on someone I hold up as a hero. Being really proud one moment of some of the things I am doing and the relationships I have with friends and family and then other moments feeling worthless and confused as to whether I am really justifying my existence and making the most of the clearly privileged position and life that I lead.

As a consequence, just listening to the interview has given me time to sit and ponder, to write this blog entry and to find hope that I will see more of Bradley The Cycling Legend out there on his bike, commentating, being a brilliant pundit and/or screen presence and it really being him.

Lastly, thank you Brad. I don’t know you well, we’ve met a few times, but your performances inspired me on the bike, I gained so much joy and joie-de-vivre when you pumped your fist crossing any finish line in first place. And I rode with you when we were drip fed stories of your not so joyous moments, wishing there had been something people could do for you to help ease the obvious pain that if you read between the lines, I could sense. Thank you Brad, and if and when we next meet I look forward to having a chat with the real person, I would love that.