Being Bradley

Here's something else that didn't previously appear on this blog. It was a feature for the Majorca Daily Bulletin in February.


In any walk of life it is hard to come to terms with the fact that you are unhappy and that you are going through the motions. For a high-performance and high-achieving athlete it must be even harder. Without happiness and without motivation, what is the point of what you are doing?

We all know Bradley Wiggins. Don't we? We all know the sideburns, the Mod look and the bit of a geezer style (all now discarded), the Olympic champion, the winner of the Tour de France. We know all this but actually we know nothing. One can only come to know so much about someone in the course of twenty minutes, but at Team Sky's Alcúdia hotel on Tuesday evening, Wiggins was remarkably frank and honest. I didn't know him before. I know something of him now.

Why unhappy though? Two years ago at the Mallorca training camp, he had been happy. But that was before everything that happened in 2012. In that summer he had left for the Tour de France and the Olympics "pretty much unknown" and had returned "the most famous man in the country". This "shortcut to fame" had been hard for him to handle and for his family. At the training camp a year ago he had yet to come to terms with the consequences of 2012. There was all the "hangover" from 2012. He hadn't looked forward to racing and when he did, it was a case of going through the motions. Missing the Tour de France last year was, he admits, a "blessing in disguise".

To make matters worse, there was the fallout from Lance Armstrong and his admission of having been a doper. His kids were "harassed" and "bullied". Was their dad taking drugs as well? He had to move them to a different school. "It was horrible. I felt responsible and it all added to my unhappiness." Then there was the team itself. The end of that season of success in 2012 should have been a time for celebration. There was a party (in London), but instead, "it felt more like a wake". 

Apart from all this, there was the need to come to terms with a different situation within the team. The elevation of Chris Froome to team leader and the apparent issues these raised for Wiggins have been chewed over enough times. Whatever issues there were, they are resolved. Wiggins' renewed happiness stems in part from "not carrying the burden any more". "Chris has taken the mantle and is set to dominate the Tour de France for the next few years. I want to do the team and do Chris justice, and to do this, I have to be there when it matters at the crucial moments." There was a time last year when he "was really struggling" and when he questioned if he was able to do a job that warranted his being on the team.

The training camp in Mallorca has helped to mend bridges and to put the team and Wiggins back into a better place. Whether in a room talking with Froome and other team members or out on the road, the time spent at the Alcúdia base both before Christmas and since the start of the new year has been hugely positive. "A complete contrast to where I was this time last year." A much happier Bradley, therefore, who is looking forward to racing with and supporting Froome and to also doing himself justice.

A key target is obviously this year's Tour de France, and there is a sense in which Wiggins wants to right what he perceives as a wrong last year; right a wrong that was the conclusion drawn by some from Froome's performance in last year's Tour. He compares how it was for him to win in 2012 with how it was for Froome by drawing what might seem a strange analogy. He was watching the film "Gladiator", and he realised that by winning the crowd and so winning your freedom was how it had been for him in 2012. He had won his freedom. "It was the opposite for Chris because of his performances" and so because of the suspicions. "The Tour was horrible for the team last year. I'd like to win those people over a bit. I feel keener to do so. I feel much more comfortable in my own shoes. A year ago I wasn't interested in the bigger picture stuff."

This bigger picture stuff includes his own role in the world of cycling and the inspiration he offers. He accepts that there will always be those who are suspicious, but he places himself in a "very small club" of Tour winners who don't have a "history". It's a euphemism, but one understands what he means. The majority of people, rather than being suspicious, believe in him. "I got knighted by my country because they believe in you. Believe in you as a role model and believe you are a genuine person. Why would you go and cheat?"

There is a humility about Wiggins, one that may be a reflection of him having come to terms with how roles have changed, but there is also a wish to tell the story of his success and of that of the team. "I'm blowing my own trumpet, but fuck it, why not? I have come through this system since I was seventeen, when Chris Boardman was the role model, to this incredible success from the track to what we do on the road. It's a different story to anyone else. No one else had gone from the track to the Tour."

And the track may just be where he ends his career; the track which was his "first love" as a cyclist and which was where it all started for him at the Sydney Olympics. "I don't think I'll go (to the Olympics in Rio in 2016) and defend my time-trial title, but I'd love to go back to the track." 2016 will be his last Olympics, if he makes the team, "so to finish on a high would be a great way to go out".

Shorter term, there are targets for this year. The Tour is one, albeit as a team member supporting Froome, another is the Tour of California, and California is a place he seems to have fallen for. There is a huge cycling community there, but he makes the point that that community "has been robbed a little by all that has gone on". The spectre of Armstrong is never far from the surface, and Armstrong was one reason why this time last year Wiggins was unhappy. That unhappiness has now gone, and the contentment of a more reflective Sir Bradley has been found, partly, on the roads of Mallorca. Out on a bike with his team mates; Froome in particular. "There's a lesson for us all to spend more time together. Just talking."