SIR BRADLEY WIGGINS has shared the horror moment he smashed up his meaningful awards in front of his distraught children.
The legendary cyclist has opened up on his struggles with cocaine addiction, which cost him his marriage and almost his life.
PA:Press AssociationSir Bradley Wiggins was knighted in 2013[/caption]
GettyIt came after his super successful 2012 at the pedal[/caption]
Wiggins, 45, was the first Brit to win the Tour de France with his success in 2012.
He then followed it up with a gold medal at the London Olympics that same year.
He was heralded for his achievements in cycling as he named the Sports Personality of the Year before being knighted in 2013.
But issues with drugs curtailed his happiness as he ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2024.
He had ended up in a crackhouse in Middlesbrough, sleeping in his car or on park benches in Clapham Common.
One explosive binge saw him destroy his SPOTY award and knighthood in front of his children, Ben, 20, and Bella, 19.
He revealed the harrowing moment in an extract from his new book.
He wrote: “I raged as I smashed up my 2012 trophy for Sports Personality of the Year and my knighthood: ‘This isn’t success.’
“I did that in front of my kids. No wonder there were times when they talked about trying to put me in rehab.
“The desecration of my Olympic medal might have happened away from their gaze but it’s equally sad to reflect on.
“Hundreds of thousands of people roaring me on, millions more watching at home.
“One of the great moments of London 2012, and there I am in a wardrobe, snorting cocaine [off my gold medal], mocking my achievement, hating it for what I believed it had brought me.
“It was the equivalent of p***ing on someone’s grave, and in that moment I was p***ing on my own.
“The gold medal, the Tour de France… All of it was dead to me. The person I’d been in Paris and London was dead to me too.”
Wiggo’s Sky claim
The former Tour de France winner and five-time Olympic gold medalist was speaking to The Times ahead of the release of his new book, The Chain.
Wiggo, who won the 2012 edition of Le Tour, wishes to put the doping allegations that plagued the end of his career behind him.
He maintains that he is completely blameless, telling the newspaper: “There was something greater going on. Team Sky chucked me under a bus.”
Asked whether he felt this was to protect someone else within the team, Wiggo said “yes”, and vowed “it’ll come out”.
Two separate investigations failed to prove the contents of a medical package – dubbed a ‘jiffy-bag’ – delivered to Wiggins at the final day of the Criterium du Dauphine in 2011, a race he won.
Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman received a separate four-year doping ban for the part he played in ordering banned substances to British Cycling’s HQ in the same year.
Wiggins has been in recovery for a year after friend and fellow cyclist Lance Armstrong, convinced him to enter a rehab programme.
Wiggins says he has a good relationship with Ben and his daughter Bella, 19, as well as his ex-wife Cath.
He is now in a relationship with an American woman and lives close enough to the mother of his youngest daughter, five, that he is able to take her to school every day.
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