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Bradley Wiggins’ tragic fall from Tour de France and Olympic cycling hero is now complete

With news he’s blown through his £13m fortune and is considering selling his medals to survive, bradley wiggins is having a tough time. jim white looks at how the sporting legend once known as le gentleman has hit rock bottom, article bookmarked.

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L e Gentleman is what the local press used to call Bradley Wiggins , back in the time when he was dominating the Tour de France . Fluent in French, always stylishly dressed, sparkling in interviews, the first Briton to win the world’s greatest cycling race was embraced in the country like few others before or since. So beloved was the then stick-thin Englishman, he almost became one of their own. 

“My God they loved him,” recalls Ned Boulting, the veteran cycling commentator. “I remember him holding court at press conferences, turning them into a stand-up routine. On form, he was just the best interviewee. He was completely unfiltered, he would tell you exactly what he felt. And he could be so funny. A brilliant mimic, he would have everyone in stitches doing his impressions. That was on a good day. On a bad day, he could be cruel, bitter, really, really horrible.”

For Wiggins, sadly, the bad days have become ever more frequent. When the race he once dominated begins its annual national circuit on 29 June, he will not be at its heart. There will be no civic receptions, no waving from balconies, no heroic grandstanding for Le Gentleman. Declared bankrupt, his family home repossessed, last heard of living in a borrowed camper van in a municipal car park in Manchester, his financial life is in tatters. 

“It is a total mess,” says his lawyer Alan Sellers. “He’s lost absolutely everything. His home, his home in Majorca, his savings and investments.”

Worse, the achievements he accumulated, feats no amount of money could ever buy, have been permanently shadowed by an all-embracing cloud of doping allegations. These are not good times for the man who was knighted by the Queen as a shining example of sporting excellence. 

Much of the coverage of Wiggins’s decline has centred on the finance, the debts, the bankruptcy. It seems incomprehensible that someone who, in 2013, was reckoned Britain’s third highest-paid sportsman (after Andy Murray and Justin Rose), who accumulated more than £13m in his stellar cycling career, who once ran a grand tour team in his name, should fall to such a precipitous low.

But some who have watched him at close quarters throughout his career reckon the money is only a manifestation, not the cause of his ills. And the clues were always there. Even at his peak, when, at the London Games of 2012 he sat atop a throne in Hampton Court after winning an Olympic gold medal just a week after finishing first on the Tour, this was a man never comfortable with success, never relaxed with fame, someone never entirely at ease with himself. 

“He was a sportsman who was defined so much by his sport that he really only ever knew himself through the sporting context,” says Boulting. “And the fact is, when his career was over, he really didn’t have a clue who he was.”

It is not that Wiggins has ever shied away from where he came from. It was a place of abuse, cruelty and pain. His father, Gary, an Australian professional cyclist, abandoned the family before he was two. The only use he ever had for his infant son was to smuggle amphetamines through customs in his nappy.

Father and son had absolutely no contact until Wiggins became a successful rider himself, when the old man made an approach. They met and Wiggins was so appalled by the bitter angry derelict opposite him, so fearful of what he might become, he walked out of the pub where they had come together. And he never saw him again. When, in 2008, Gary died after being beaten up in a street fight in New South Wales, Wiggins couldn’t bring himself to go to the funeral. 

Other male role models were few and far between in his life: he revealed in 2013 that he had been sexually abused by his coach when he was a teenage cyclist, something he could not tell his violent and dismissive stepfather, who consistently mocked his cycling abilities. Fuelled by self-loathing, he threw himself into his sport, pursuing the relentless training with a masochistic intensity.

“Nobody trained like him,” says the cycling journalist Tom Cary. “He just had one thing in mind: winning.”

So extraordinary was his application, that he turned himself from an excellent track cyclist, who won golds at four successive Olympic Games, into a dominant rider on the Tour, a discipline requiring not just a different set of cycling skills, but a whole other physique. 

“To win the Tour you have to be able to win in the mountains,” says Boulting. “He just made himself do it. Nobody has ever put themselves through what he had to do to win the Tour. He completely rebuilt his body.”

With success came acclaim. But he never found the adulation easy. In one of his several autobiographies, he admits that as early as 2004, after becoming the first Briton in 40 years to win three medals at the same Olympics, he took to the bottle to cope with the ensuing attention. He credits his then wife Cath – and the arrival of his son Ben – with stopping him. What he did not want was to turn into his father.

“I had responsibilities,” he wrote in My Time , his autobiography. “I had to grow up.”

The trouble was, the more he applied himself to his sport, the more he won and the more fame came his way. By 2012 and his Tour victory, he was the nation’s favourite sportsman. The Sun gave away free stick-on Wiggo sideburns to celebrate his mod style, Paul Smith released a line of clothing designed with him, his sleek, aloof, ironic detachment was reckoned coolness personified. It was, he later admitted, all an act. Unsure how to behave in the public eye, he hid behind a persona. 

“I’m an introverted, private person. I didn’t know who ‘me’ was, so I adopted a kind of veil – a sort of rock-star veil. It wasn’t really me … It was probably the unhappiest period of my life. Everything I did was about winning for other people, and the pressures that came with being the first British winner of the Tour. I really struggled with it,” he wrote in My Time .

It was a struggle, he later admitted that deeply affected his disposition. As those closest to him quickly came to recognise. 

“Everyone’s mood was determined by how Brad felt,” says someone who was on the Sky Team during those Tour years, who prefers to remain unnamed. “If he was in a good mood, it was a good day for all of us. When he was down, Christ it was tough. That said, he could be incredibly generous. He regularly bought everyone on the team a designer watch when we won.”

But, whatever may have been going on in private, the public bought the image. And when he won gold in the Rio games in 2016 before announcing his retirement, he was celebrated as the greatest. Across the country, hundreds of young wannabe Wiggos took to their bikes. 

“His legacy is huge,” says Boulting. “There’ll be several riders on the Tour, British lads riding for foreign teams, who only got into the sport because of him. He inspired the country to get on its bike.”

But then, in September 2016, came the first real damage to his credibility. A bunch of Russian computer hackers called Fancy Bear leaked his private medical records online. It was clear he was using a steroid called triamcinolone.

His insistence was it was to counter the effects of asthma, a so-called therapeutic use exemption (TUEs). But over the next couple of years, Wiggins and Team Sky were embroiled in a scandal about how much they had been pushing the rules, filled with tales of TUEs, jiffy bags, and dodgy medics.

Damian Collins MP, then chair of the Select Committee for Culture Media and Sport, recalls the findings of a parliamentary inquiry. “We believed that drugs were being used by Team Sky, within the WADA rules, to enhance the performance of riders, and not just to treat medical need,” he says. 

The very greyness of the ensuing scrutiny cast doubt over everything Wiggins had achieved.

“It basically put an asterisk against his record,” says Cary.

His relationship with Cath was broken by the strain of public scrutiny. They divorced, he moved out of the family home, the companies they had run together began to wither.

His personal circumstances had always been his grounding, their stability a contrast to his father’s waywardness. Without them – and without cycling – he floundered. He could find no valid direction. He tried boxing, he said he was going to compete in the 2020 Olympics as a rower, he trained as a social worker, then as a doctor. Nothing ever came of anything. And he took his frustrations out on whoever came close. 

“He was really appalling to me and to this day I don’t know why,” says Boulting. “But to be fair to him, we stayed in the same hotel when he was doing some punditry for the Tour in 2019 and he came over and apologised. We had a really good long chat and he admitted he could be really vicious for no reason. It was obviously a symptom of what was going on inside.”

Occasionally he would undertake an interview, when, with his characteristic frankness, he would reveal much. He talked of the abuse in his childhood, of his battles with depression, of how sporting success meant little to him (in one interview he said he kept all his medals in a carrier bag and had smashed up his BBC Sports Personality of the Year trophy). And every time he would insist he was happier than when he competed. “I’m more comfortable in my own skin,” his usual phrase.

Significantly, his own skin had changed completely. In 2012, as he sat atop that throne, his arms were ink-free. A dozen years on, he is now covered in tattoos, including a replica of an album cover by The Prodigy on his left shoulder and an image of crucified Jesus on his back. Every inch of his body has been turned into a graphic novel. 

Through it all, the money ebbed away. Though invariably generous, he was not noticeably reckless with his cash, living comfortably rather than ostentatiously in Lancashire. He blames poor advice for the issues.

His lawyer Alan Sellers says he never properly understood finance. Whatever the cause, earlier this year everything suddenly collapsed. Wiggins Rights Ltd, a shield company for his earnings, had been put into voluntary liquidation in 2020. In 2022, the IVA was wound up because he hadn’t repaid £979,953, mainly to HMRC. Now has come bankruptcy and an apparent loss of all his assets. 

And he faces a challenge as tough as any in his life. While not as physically demanding as the climb up Alpe d’Huez, he not only needs to recover financially, he has to find direction, purpose, meaning. 

“I know it’s not the same,” says Boulting. “But I watched him turn himself into a Tour winner, and that required the most extraordinary mental determination. If anyone has the capacity to make the necessary change and find a new direction it is Brad.”

And Boulting mentions the fact that Ben, Wiggins’s son, is now a professional rider, one many reckon has the capacity to soon race in the Tour. Wiggins has tried to keep his distance from the boy’s cycling, anxious not to pressurise. But the pair’s relationship is warm, and Wiggins has been often spotted in the background when his son competes, performing a role he never experienced when he was competing: that of the proud father watching on. 

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Tour de France Stage 20: Bradley Wiggins wins the Tour and leads out Mark Cavendish to fourth Champs-Elysees win

Bradley Wiggins this afternoon crowned the greatest day in British cycling history by not only becoming the first rider from these shores to win the Tour de France, but also leading world champion Mark Cavendish under the flamme rouge to set up the world champion for his fourth consecutive victory on the Champs Elysees, his first there for Team Sky.

When the team was launched in 2010, Dave Brailsford attracted derision when he said its aim was to produce a British winner of the Tour de France within five years. They have achieved that with time to spare, and what's more there is also a British runner-up in the shape of Chris Froome.

With thousands of British fans lining the closing circuit in Paris today, it will be some party in the French capital tonight - Wiggins, Froome and Cavendish however will head to join up with Team GB, with the Olympic road race now less than a week away. With Wiggins today achieving one of the most historic victories ever by a British athlete in any sport, it's a great way to kick off the week in which London 2012 starts.

On a day when the record books were rewritten, one statistic that jumps out is that Cavendish, awarded the accolade of the Tour de France’s greatest ever sprinter a little over a week ago, is now indisputably its most successful.

Not only has he never been beaten on the Champs-Elysées on the four occasions he has finished the Tour de France, but today was his 23rd stage win in the race, putting him ahead of André Darrigade who racked up 22 victories between 1953 and 1964. Cavendish has overhauled that record in half the time.

A man who helped lead Cavendish to one of those Champs-Elysées victories, his former HTC-Columbia team mate George Hincapie, was himself setting a record on this year’s Tour as he made his seventeenth and final participation in the race.

Hincapie, now with BMC Racing, who has completed the race on sixteen of those occasions, was today given the honour of leading the peloton onto the Champs-Elysées for the first of a little over eight laps of frantic racing ahead of the final sprint for the line.

Usually, tradition has it that the maillot jaune’s team leads the man who is the Tour’s winner in waiting onto the famous avenue, but certainly Team Sky weren’t complaining, a helpful nudge in the back from one of their riders helping propel the American to the front of the race for the last time.

Earlier, the peloton had rolled in from Rambouillet, located to the southwest of the French capital, at the usual sedate pace that marks the early part of the final stage of the Tour,

The classification winners – Peter Sagan and Tejay Van Garderen respectively in the green and white jerseys and Thomas Voeckler in polka dot, well, everything – lined up with Wiggins for the obligatory photocall.

Once onto the Rue de Rivoli and the closing circuit, however, racing began in earnest. Joining Hincapie in jumping off the front was another 39-year-old, RadioShack Nissan’s Chris Horner.

A number of other riders managed to jump across to them, the composition of the group kept changing as the peloton snapped at their heels.

Ultimately it was the oldest rider in the race, Horner’s team mate Jens Voigt, who managed to lead the break that stuck, initially attacking with fellow German Danilo Hondo of Lampre-ISD. Lars Bak of Lotto Belisol, who had been in the break of last year’s Tour, also got across, with others attacking behind him.

The group of 11 that eventually formed did their best to stay out as long as they could, but with Liquigas-Cannondale joining Team Sky in leading the chase and Lotto-Belisol and Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank also moving to the front of the peloton inside the final lap, the break was doomed and the last escapees were caught with a little under 3 kilometres left.

After emerging from the tunnel beneath the Tuileries gardens and turning hard left at Norwegian Corner opposite the gilded statue of Joan of Arc onto the Rue de Rivoli, Team Sky were tearing along at the front of the peloton hunting for the perfect end to a Tour in which they have provided a tactical masterclass.

Wiggins himself put in a long stint towing the peloton along, peeling off on the Place de la Concorde, rivals all over the road as they tried to find the line through that would somehow give them a chance of challenging Cavendish for the win.

No-one knows the final corner like the Manxman, however, and as he Edvald Boasson Hagen led him out of it, Cavendish came out of the Norwegian’s slipstream and powered home ahead of Sagan and former HTC Highroad team mate, Matt Goss.

In the last three editions of the race, Cavendish’s final day victories, including last year’s confirmation of his points classification victory, have been the high spots of the Tour for British fans.

It’s a sign of the growing strength of British cycling that today’s win was simply icing on the cake to what will go down as the Tour when Bradley Wiggins made history and became the first rider ever to bring the maillot jaune back across the Channel.

Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins, Team Sky:

“It's hard to take in as it happens. Every lap of the Champs-Elysées was goosepimple stuff. We had a job to do with Mark today and we were all motivated to do that so it made it go a lot quicker. The concentration was high and for Mark to finish it off like that... well, it couldn't get any better. 


“I don't actually know what to say that I haven't already said yesterday. It's brilliant. But I'm lost for words. It's a different feeling to 24 hours ago but we've come here and we were committed to what we were doing so there was no sense of, ‘Oh, this is it.' It was so hard once the race started and, right to the end, when I was leading out with a kilometre to go. Right now, at the base of the podium, I'm trying to soak it all in and it's hard to articulate what I'm feeling. It's a strange feeling, really – very strange.


“Now we've come out of our bubble and now we start to realise what it means to all these people who have come over here for the weekend. That turn [near the Arc de Triomphe] was just a sea of Brits and the noise was incredible. It was close to what it was like at the Olympics in Athens when I was coming into the home straight. It's that kind of feeling. It's phenomenal. You couldn't fail to hear it. 


“Tonight I go home. Everything turns to the Olympics and I'll be out on the bike tomorrow and I've got an Olympic time trial to try and win. So that's a higher priority than anything else. It's a little weird to leave Paris without a party because it would be nice to spend time with the team and really enjoy it. This has been – as everyone's seen – such a team effort. Even today, it was an incredible group of guys. I've had the privilege to ride with them for the past three weeks; it's been an absolute honour.


“You imagine that you'd feel an enormous sense of relief but you get there and it's a very strange feeling. I remember watching Cadel win it last year and thinking, ‘God, that must be incredible!' But it happens to you and it doesn't feel as you imagine it to feel. It's a strange sensation. It's very surreal.”

Stage winner Mark Cavendish, Team Sky:

“After getting first and second on GC, winning five stages – or, whatever... how many was it before today – it wasn't going to be an unsuccessful Tour by any means. I'm just happy to get that final win today. We had the whole team on the front and it was an incredible sight. 


“I'm very ready for the Olympics now. Between four of the five guys who are in the Olympic Games squad, there are seven stage wins at the Tour de France so we're going to have an incredibly strong team and we're not just going to the Games to see how it goes. We're fully excited about it and we'll just wait for next Saturday. 


“My legs are really good. You've seen my sprint is really good and I just like getting to the finish. I've got an incredible team to try and do that in London four out of five of us have won stages here... between us we have one out of every three stages of this year's Tour. As a nation in the cycling world, there's nothing better than that.

“It was great for British cycling fans to see what they saw today: guys who are first and second on GC in the Tour de France controlling the peloton and the yellow jersey leading it out at the last kilometre... and me winning for a fourth time here. I'm incredibly proud of an incredible three weeks that came to a close today. 


“It was a sea of blue, white and red flags and it's incredible to see that in Paris.”

Tour de France runner-up, Chris Froome, Team Sky:

“I'm blown away by what we as a team have achieved these last three weeks as a team; it's monumental. Also, for a team that's relatively new to cycling – this is only the third year for Team Sky now – so for us to have two riders standing on the top two steps of the podium on the Champs-Elysées... it's really something special. Hopefully it's set the precedent for us going forward in the future. 


“I surprised myself. I knew I had very good condition coming into this race but you never know where your opposition is at and I was never confident that I would be right at the top of the sport. I'm really happy to be in this position and I hope to keep competing like this in the future. 


“I might not need to change my team to be a winner of the Tour de France. I'd love to win it one day and let's see... I've learned so much this year being right there at the front of the race but not having the pressure of being the leader. I'm going to take that experience away and hopefully learn for the future.


“I never saw this day coming so I couldn't be happier.”

Dave Brailsford, Team Principal at Team Sky:

"I’m very proud. It’s quite emotional. When I got into cycling, nobody else knew about it, but to see all those British flags on the roadside in Paris was phenomenal and I want to thank everybody for coming and thanks for all the support around the world. "It's been an amazing Tour for us. Bradley has had an amazing race and demonstrated he was the best rider in it by finishing with a time trial like that on Saturday.

"We're very lucky to have both Chris and Brad on the same team. This was a Tour that suited Bradley. He's climbing really well, his time trialling's been off the scale and now I think you can see why we stuck with him.

"I couldn't be prouder to have worked with both Bradley and Chris. For Bradley to have won this race, as a British rider - which has never been done before - with a British team with a fantastic British sponsor, it's the stuff of dreams

"I'd never have said that we could do it unless I really believed that we could. A lot of people laughed when we said that we could win this race in five years with a clean British rider. But we were serious about it, we'd done our homework, we knew what Bradley was capable of and what a British team would be capable of - and we set about it.

"From a team perspective we'd like to build on this and I'd like to think this is not just a one-off. The staff and riders should take time and reflect a little bit now but we're building a team for the future here which we want to keep on progressing and coming back to this race to do it all again."

“I can’t allow this achievement to sink in yet. I’m flying straight out of Paris and into the Great Britain training camp in Newport to prepare for the Olympic Games. My thoughts turned to that almost as soon as Brad had stepped off the podium. As I said, everyone else should savour the moment but I can’t wait to get into that Olympic arena now with a British team and show the whole world what we’re made of. “

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Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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21 comments.

Amid all the congratulations one man seems to have been left out. James Murdoch, the son of the Devil himself, for signing those big cheques that made this all possible.

I'll get my coat......

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Road.cc are absolutely right to throw up a stub article initially, simply because us lot are going to comment somewhere - yes one of us could create a forum thread, but giving us a story (however brief) to attach them to, then simply updating the text is by far the better approach.

Other than that, I can't help thinking that, apart from this pointless discussion, the overriding sentiment is that we're all chuffed to bits with the success... which suggests a possibly deliberate fly in the ointment - not trolling are you?

(And if he is, the rest of us need to stop feeding him)

Oh and just a very quick word on the Sun's cycling coverage.

This article:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/4435008/Sprint-king-Mark-Cave...

Lifts quotes attributed to Gianni Bugno from a spoof article on Cyclismas (you'd have thought the other 'quotes' might have set the alarm bells ringing:

http://www.cyclismas.com/2012/07/bugno-declares-cavendish-a-disgrace-to-...

What we've found works best for us, and for the site's users from what we've heard, is a couple of paragraphs summarising the race - who won, GC, major incidents etc - that goes up as soon as possible after the stage, then add in the full report once that's written, then the results and reaction later.

As you noticed, the full report did mention Darrigade's record being beaten, and also that Cav has never been beaten on the Champs (the only record Cav breaks for wins there is his own - only one other rider has won on the Champs more than once - Abdoujaparov, and not in consecutive years).

No doubt Cav remains King of the Champs, but worth remembering Darrigade for example never got the chance to race there - finish has only been there since 1975, by which point Jens Voigt had already learnt his first words. 'Shut up legs," we're guessing.

It would have been difficult to kick off this article without mentioning that the race had just ended with its first British winner. It would have been difficult to start it without mentioning Cavendish. That's why they're both mentioned in the headline and the opening paragraph.

Hope that helps explain.

Well as a transplanted Canadian living in the States, with Brit parents, it's a lot to digest! I love it just as I loved it when Armstrong "pulled the peloton" of American cycling into the spotlight. To many, this may have been "The Snore de France" but I thought it was full of emotional uplifting moments, from Sagan's banging his fist onto the table of (potential) greatness to Voekler's trademark doggedness (is he not always amazing?) to T-P (the next great French hope?) to Georgie getting a hand on the back and shoved to the sharp end to lead the gruppo onto Rivoli...this was a great Tour. Maybe not the toe to toe fisticuffs of this year's Giro, but...it was a grand race for sure. Chapeau's to all the riders.

@PaulVWatts - using an article from the Sun to prove your point shows that your dredging the bottom of the barrel - it's a comic for crying out loud!!! You should try reading a newspaper for a change rather than a gossip rag. It only proves that what you know about cycling could be written on the back of a stamp.........with a marker!

LoL the only reason that article was in the sun is because of Cav's GF.

Well done all of the Sky boys as well as Dave Millar - Looking good for the Olympic Road race.

I'm not diminishing Wiggins achievement but I think the press putting him above Cavendish in the ranks of British cycling history is ridiculous. I never thought I'd recommend a Sun article but try this one which I think is more appropriate than the one above for todays race

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/4443801/Mark-Cavendish-storms...

Allez les rosbifs!

What an achievement! Also loving the fact that the last 3 stages all dominated by brits - and every rider in the Olympic squad has won a stage in this years TDF (alright, except Stannard, but he's doing well elsewhere).

Well done guys. Great work.

I'm getting a bit sick of the Wiggo hype. Whats missing above is Mark Cavendish is now the most succesful sprinter in the history of the Tour de France and the fourth most most succesful stage winner in its history.No mention of that above. Also no mention of the fact he's never lost on the Champs Elysees. Where are you getting your cycling news from the Daily Mail?

PaulVWatts wrote: I'm getting a bit sick of the Wiggo hype. Whats missing above is Mark Cavendish is now the most succesful sprinter in the history of the Tour de France and the fourth most most succesful stage winner in its history.No mention of that above. Also no mention of the fact he's never lost on the Champs Elysees. Where are you getting your cycling news from the Daily Mail?

True. But that doesn't diminish Wiggo's achievement.

S'good day for British cycling!

Woah there, so what about all the hype Cavandish gets over Chris Hoy etc?

Maybe it's like... Wiggos time? Cav has gotten enough coverage over the years and has not won as many stages as before in this year's tour - does it make more sense now?

Awesome. Just fantastic. Magnificent achievement by everyone involved, on and off the bike, but especially the man himself.

Well done Wiggo.

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Tour de France

Where are they now bradley wiggins’ tour de france winning team 10 years on, it has been 10 years since bradley wiggins became the first british tour de france winner. what happened next for the members of sky's 2012 tour-winning squad..

Don't miss a moment of the 2024 Tour de France! Get recaps, insights, and exclusive takes with Velo's daily newsletter. >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Sign up today! .

This summer marks a full decade since Bradley Wiggins became the first ever British winner of the men’s Tour de France .

Before the British press dust off their Union Jack bunting, sideburns become momentarily and inexplicably fashionable again, and we ponder whatever happened to such backroom staff as Geert Leinders, we look back at the all-conquering Sky Procycling team from the 2012 Tour de France and what came next for the nine-man team.

• Bradley Wiggins alleges he was sexually abused by a coach at the age of 13
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The team was founded at the start of 2010 with the ambition of winning the Tour de France with a British rider within five years. Those plans looked more like a dream when Wiggins cracked horribly in 2010 and the team was unable to muster a GC challenge. A year later Wiggins looked in form but a crash took him out of the race on the road to Châteauroux.

However, by 2012 the British outfit had mastered the arts of marginal gains, and had set about dominating the pro scene with ruthless efficiency.

101 – Bradley Wiggins

Coming into the 2012 Tour de France the British rider was among the firm favorites for the overall win. His early season form had been impeccable, with wins in Paris-Nice, the Tour de Romandie, and the Critérium du Dauphiné.

After finishing second in the Tour de France prologue in Liege behind Fabian Cancellara, the Team Sky leader edged into the maillot jaune at La Blanche des Belles Filles on stage 7 and never looked back.

There was the spat with Chris Froome, and there was Wiggins’ astonishing press conference in which anyone who dared to question the validity of relevant performances was deemed c***ts or w****rs. Or both.

In general it was a comprehensive and clear cut Tour win, with Wiggins leading a one-two in the GC and a six stage haul for Sky Procycling.

• Bradley Wiggins regrets fall out with Chris Froome after 2012 Tour de France
• VeloNews stories of the decade: Team Sky’s Tour de France domination

After his Tour win, Wiggins was never really the same in terms of stage racing performances. Understandably he’d won the biggest bike race in the world, and the sacrifices needed to reach that level weren’t on his agenda going forward. Just as well really given how quickly and mercilessly he was replaced as the team’s number one a year later.

There were still plenty of glittering moments, with a valiant crack at Paris-Roubaix, an hour record, another couple of Olympic golds, and a world title in the Madison alongside Mark Cavendish, before retirement would eventually come in 2016.

He would also found a development team, a bike brand, have his name linked to a tax avoidance scheme, and have two companies liquidated.

The revelations brought to the wider public by the Fancy Bear hackers surrounding the use of corticosteroid triamcinolone certainly took the gloss off Wiggins’ achievements — even if he didn’t break any rules — while we’re still waiting for the now 42-year-old to “have his say” when it comes to “jiffy-gate”.

Now a television commentator, Wiggins jostles between residing as an out-and-out pundit and being an in-race moto correspondent for Eurosport . He’s rather refreshing in both roles, and when he speaks about racing and tactics he’s worth listening to. He remains a cult hero to many.

102 – Edvald Boasson Hagen

The Norwegian had been Sky Procycling’s savior in 2011 when he won two stages following Wiggins’ departure from the race in an ambulance. Often labeled as a misused talent at the British team, it’s worth remembering that the now 35-year-old won 25 races in his four years on the squad, and played a role in two Tour de France wins.

He also never developed into a pure monument contender, regardless of the team he raced for, so putting all the blame on Sky Procycling for his lack of success seems somewhat unwarranted. Admittedly, the incredible trajectory that he first displayed around 2009 didn’t carry on but that happens, and to be honest, Peter Sagan came through a few years later and basically raised the bar for all Boasson Hagen-like riders for an entire generation.

At the Tour in 2012, Boasson Hagen was an incredibly solid performer. He was still in the group on the critical stage to Peyragudes when Sky Procycling faced pressure from their rivals, and he was a key rider on all the flat stages too.

After leaving Sky Procycling at the end of 2014 Boasson Hagen went on to spend six years at Dimension Data, where he was underrated as a leader, before beginning a slow and steady decline into his mid-30s. Now at TotalEnergies, he’s actually found some decent form as his career approaches an Indian summer, and he could be in line for a final crack at the Tour before a likely retirement at the end of the next season.

On his day, Boasson Hagen was a force to be reckoned with and his career will probably only receive the credit it deserves once he hangs up his wheels. Speak to any of his teammates over the years and they’ll all rate him as both an athlete and a human being, which is probably all that really matters at the end of the day.

103 – Mark Cavendish

The sprinter was signed to Sky after the demise of HTC-Highroad and it looked like a marriage made in heaven with the fastest man on two wheels linking up with many of his teammates and support staff from the British Cycling scene.

However, by the end of the Tour de France, team boss Dave Brailsford was willing to let Cavendish depart mid-contract. The 2012 season certainly wasn’t a failure, and Cavendish still totted up three Tour stage wins and had the luxury of having the maillot jaune lead him out on the Champs Elysées.

He was a solid teammate, too, having dropped a bit of weight in order to help his team on the shorter climbs. Sky simply wanted to concentrate on stage racing and that left Cavendish in a tight spot.

The one-year spell on Sky would eventually make way for a stint for Patrick Lefevere’s team at the end of the season before another move to Dimension Data. Cavendish’s career then went through a complete reformation after a long period of illness and struggles that almost left him without a team at the end of 2020, but in 2021 he rolled back the years to return to Lefevere and take four Tour stage wins and a second green jersey.

Still racing, the 37-year-old is unlikely to make the Tour de France team for this year, but he still harbors hopes of beating Eddy Merckx’s 34-stage win record with the pair currently tied neck and neck. The relationship between Cavendish and Wiggins has been fascinating to follow over the years too, with the pair falling out but still gravitating towards each other.

104 – Bernhard Eisel

Eisel followed Cavendish to Sky after the demise of Bob Stapleton’s HTC-Highroad empire and the amicable Austrian made an instant impression with back-to-back appearances at the Giro and the Tour in 2012. Aged 31 at the time, Eisel had three main jobs at the Tour: sticking with Cavendish; providing cover in the leadouts, and supporting the team’s GC ambitions in his ninth appearance at the race.

He did his job without fuss or drama and was rewarded with a contract extension, although he would later call missing the 2013 Tour selection the biggest disappointment of his career at the time.

Eisel would carry on in the pro ranks right until the end of the 2019 season, coming back from a serious head injury in 2018 and forming part of the core squad at Dimension Data. Since hanging up his wheels he has worked within the commentary fraternity and was at the Tour de France last year before taking up a DS role at Bora-Hansgrohe at the start of 2022.

His skills as a rider, whether he was racing full gas at the classics, dragging Cavendish over the mountains, or backing up Wiggins, make him a natural character for a director’s role.

“I’m half Bora and half Eurosport GCN . I did the Giro for Eurosport Germany including in the studio, I’ll do the Tour on the ground as always for Eurosport GCN and finish off the season the Vuelta as a DS,” he told VeloNews in a text message just a few days ago.

105 – Chris Froome

Heading into the 2012 Tour de France, the consensus was that Wiggins was the outright leader and that Froome was a worthy backup having gone through something of a metamorphosis as a rider nine months earlier at the Vuelta a España.

Froome won at La Blanche des Belles Filles on stage 7 as Wiggins raced into yellow during the first week, and all looked rosy but controversy erupted during what was essentially a one-sided Tour when Froome initially didn’t wait for Wiggins at Peyragudes despite Sean Yates’ vocal interventions down the race radio for him to slow.

Tensions were made worse when Froome declared that had the strength to win the race, when he said. “I know that I can win this Tour – but not with Sky. We made our plans around Wiggins and everyone respects that.”

Froome had already provided proof of his superior climbing powers at La Toussuire earlier in the race, and Wiggins initially tried to insinuate that he would work for Froome in the future, but behind the scenes, tensions flared and according to Yates, Wiggins even threatened to quit the race while in yellow.

The relationship between Wiggins and Froome soured from that Tour onwards and the pair couldn’t even be in the same room as each other, let alone the same roster.

We all know what happened next. Froome got the nod for team leadership in 2013, and won the race four times, while Wiggins picked off other targets as his motivation for grand tours waned.

Froome’s career hasn’t been without controversy either. He was eventually cleared after exceeding the therapeutic threshold for an asthma drug at the Vuelta in 2017, while the UCI would later reform its protocols after the British rider had a TUE fast tracked in 2014 ahead of the Tour de Romandie.

Froome is still kicking around in the pro ranks at the grand old age of 37 having come through a life-threatening crash at the Dauphiné in 2019. Away from the peloton, he has multiple business interests including Factor, and is likely to race the Tour de France this summer.

106 – Christian Knees

A hugely respected domestique, Knees moved over to Sky at the start of 2011 after Milram shut up shop. He would finish his career with 20 grand tour starts and 19 finishes — an incredible feat for a rider of any generation.

He raced just three Tours for the British team with starts in 2011, 2012, and 2017, and although he didn’t win a great deal as a bike racer, he garnered a reputation as a hard worker who dedicated his services to others.

Knees eventually retired in 2020 and took up coaching as well as a DS role at Ineos Grenadiers, where he remains to this day. Like Eisel, he’s just made for the job.

107 – Richie Porte

In 2012 the young Australian was in his first season at Sky after moving over from Bjarne Riis’ Saxo squad at the end of 2011.

Porte and Sky couldn’t have hoped for a better start in 2012 with the Tasmanian winning his first stage race on the team at the Volta ao Algarve, and then providing vital teamwork at races such as Paris-Nice, Romandie, and the Dauphiné. He was pivotal again at the Tour de France, often the last Sky rider with Wiggins and Froome in the mountains, and driving the pace at several key points, including on the climb to La Blanche des Belles Filles where his work helped to distance the likes of Samuel Sanchez, Maxime Monfort, and Andreas Klöden to reduce the maillot jaune group to just eight riders.

When Froome took over as the team’s primary GC leader in 2013 Porte moved up a rung on the ladder.

Porte later branched out, first as a GC candidate at Sky and then at BMC Racing. At one point he was pound-for-pound the best weeklong stage racer on the planet but his best result came at the 2020 Tour when he finally cracked it and made it onto the podium behind Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič. Without bad luck and crashes, especially during his time at BMC Racing, he probably would have achieved a grand tour podium much earlier.

The Australian is now back at Ineos Grenadiers, where he has settled into the familiar role of an experienced domestique. Married and with a young family, he’s set to retire at the end of the season. A move back to Australia is on the cards in 2023.

108 – Michael Rogers

Rogers is the third rider on the list who moved to Sky after the collapse of HTC, and he was certainly the most accomplished in terms of stage racing credentials who made the switch. He was integral when it came to tapping out Wiggins’ preferred pace in the mountains, often setting up the malliot jaune group before Porte took over.

At the end of 2012 things started to become a little more complicated. In the wake of the USADA investigation into Lance Armstrong’s and US Postal’s doping practices, Sky panicked themselves into an unrealistic and frankly absurd zero tolerance policy that left a chunk of staff out of jobs.

Rogers left for Saxo Bank at the end of the year, and while the team claimed that the two incidents were unrelated Rogers was forced to defend his previous relationship with former coach Michele Ferrari, stating that he’d only used the doctor for training purposes and that doping never came up in conversation. Rogers would also state that the move from Sky to Saxo Bank was purely a financial decision.

A positive test for clenbuterol followed but he was later cleared by the UCI because there was a “significant probability that the presence of clenbuterol may have resulted from the consumption of contaminated meat.”

He would then win three grand tour stages in one season in 2014 but a heart condition would ultimately end his career in 2016.

After retiring, Rogers moved into management, first at VirtuGo, and then within the Dimension Data ranks when Bjarne Riis took on a role there in 2020. That gig ended with Riis leaving and Rogers taking up a role at the UCI where he is now the head of road & innovation.

109 – Kanstantsin Siutsou

Like Rogers, Cavendish, and Eisel, the Belarussian jumped from HTC at the end of 2011 and linked up with Dave Brailsford’s team for the following season. He lasted four years on Sky but just two stages at the Tour in 2012 due to a crash that left him with a broken leg.

He came back and raced his final Tour de France the following year before concentrating on the Giro and Vuelta as his career moved in another direction.

He had a year at Dimension Data followed by 18 months at Bahrain Merida. However, time on that team was cut short due to the rather unfortunate inconvenience of a whopping four-year doping ban after testing positive for banned blood booster Erythropoietin (EPO).

The ban ends on September 4, 2022 in case you’re interested. At the time said that he was “looking to process, and my liberation” but that talk quickly died down. According to his Instagram account, he’s now a co-founder of Velotooler, an app that matches bike riders with local mechanics.

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Sir Bradley Wiggins rejoins Tour de France peloton – on the back of a motorbike

The former Tour winner will be getting a front-row seat for the race

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Sir Bradley Wiggins has made an exciting return to the Tour de France peloton, only this time from the back of a motorbike.

The winner of the 2012 Tour has got up close and personal with stage one of the 2019 edition following along on the race bike.

Wiggins, who retired from racing in 2016, will be following the race as part of his work with Eurosport where he has been an expert pundit.

>>> Who are the commentators at the Tour de France 2019?

After offering analysis of the Giro d’Italia from the Eurosport studio earlier this year, Wiggins has got stuck in at the Tour as a motorbike reporter, offering his insight will pursuing the race on the back of a race bike.

https://twitter.com/search?q=wiggins&src=typd

On his new role at the Tour de France 2019 , Wiggins said: “This is going to be a whole new experience for me and I’m really looking forward to it.

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“I’m going to be right in the thick of things, giving fans something a little different. I think it’s going to be really exciting.”

The unexpected development has caused quite a stir in the cycling world, with the likes of Rally Cycling pro Abby Mickey sharing her excitement online.

She said: “Just watching the Tour on Eurosport and they’ve got Wiggins on a scooter on course doing commentary and I am THRILLED.”

Wiggins is part of a revamped team covering Grand Tours for Eurosport, which was launched at the 2019 Giro d’Italia.

Lead presenter Orla Chennaoui joined the channel this year, with regulars Brian Smith, Rob Hatch, Carlton Kirby and Sean Kelly also contributing.

>>> Dimension Data management still at odds over how Mark Cavendish Tour de France decision was made

Eurosport’s senior director of production and broadcast, Jamie Steward, said: “We are continually exploring new innovations to provide further insight to the fan. Bradley’s new role will bring an extra element to our coverage and allow viewers to enjoy a truly immersive experience.

“We are committed to powering people’s passions and this couple with every stage broadcast live and in full will deliver our most comprehensive coverage ever.”

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Alex Ballinger is editor of BikeBiz magazine, the leading publication for the UK cycle industry, and is the former digital news editor for CyclingWeekly.com. After gaining experience in local newsrooms, national newspapers and in digital journalism, Alex found his calling in cycling, first as a reporter, then as news editor responsible for Cycling Weekly's online news output, and now as the editor of BikeBiz. Since pro cycling first captured his heart during the 2010 Tour de France (specifically the Contador-Schleck battle) Alex covered three Tours de France, multiple editions of the Tour of Britain, and the World Championships, while both writing and video presenting for Cycling Weekly. He also specialises in fitness writing, often throwing himself into the deep end to help readers improve their own power numbers.  Away from the desk, Alex can be found racing time trials, riding BMX and mountain bikes, or exploring off-road on his gravel bike. He’s also an avid gamer, and can usually be found buried in an eclectic selection of books.

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Bradley Wiggins: You can't twist reality and get away with it

Former Tour de France winner confirms he will release a new documentary in 2022

Bradley Wiggins has told Cyclingnews that he has plans to release a new and potentially explosive documentary in 2022. 

The film, which Wiggins says could be called '10 Years After Yellow', will focus on the last 10 years of his life and comes after 'A year in Yellow', which was released on the back of his 2012 Tour de France victory.

Since then, Wiggins has reformed himself as a television pundit on Eurosport, run a domestic cycling team, and adjusted to life outside of the pressures of professional cycling. He remains very much in the spotlight and part of the British psyche, and only last week tabloid papers in England published photos of the former Olympic star smoking a cigarette, under the impression that it was actually news.

However, the former Team Sky leader also faced questions after the hacking group Fancy Bears revealed that he had availed of Therapeutic Use Exemptions to take the corticosteroid triamcinolone acetonide - ordinarily banned in competition - ahead of the 2011 and 2012 Tours and the 2013 Giro d'Italia. 

Bradley Wiggins calls for another investigation into Freeman testosterone case Bradley Wiggins: There's a fragility about Egan Bernal at the Giro d'Italia Wiggins' 2012 Tour de France-winning bike for sale 25 cycling personalities of the past 25 years

A further hit to his reputation and those of British Cycling and Team Sky came when the Daily Mail revealed that in 2011 that a package had been sent from British Cycling’s base in Manchester to the Critérium du Dauphiné. It was alleged but never proven that the package was for Wiggins and that it contained triamcinolone. Wiggins has always denied those allegations, claiming that a source for the story and a subsequent parliamentary inquiry was set up to 'destroy' him .

The aftershocks from that story are still rumbling on to this day, with Richard Freeman, the doctor at the centre of the story, fighting for his reputation after being struck off the medical register . Wiggins has already called for a further investigation into the package of testosterone Freeman ordered to British Cycling’s Manchester velodrome in 2011, and Freeman faces fresh charges from UK Anti Doping over the matter.

Wiggins admits that complete closure may never be possible but, when discussing whether he was still in contact with certain members of his former cycling entourage, he told Cyclingnews that he held no grudges.

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"I continue to be myself and just be me. I can’t have any bitterness or resentment. I’d rather just be me," he said.

"I’m not going to cast aspersions on people. I know what I did and I know how I conducted myself. I know that doesn’t help anyone in terms of getting somewhere but one thing that I’ve learned and one thing that I’m studying at the moment is that people don’t very often get away with things in life. You can’t twist the fucking fabric of reality in life to that extent and get away with it. Things come back to you and with a due process I hope that it’s not over yet.

"We might never know [what happened – ed], but I can’t live in a time warp and be bitter about it. I’ve just got to continue what I do, and enjoy it. I can’t walk around begrudging people and being bitter. It’s not my highest priority. It’s not healthy.

"When you think about the Freeman thing, we found out at the first hearing that they were guilty of the patches [testosterone gels – ed]. There are about 15 people that they were claimed to be for and about three or four toilets that they’ve been down since. We found out the same things a few months ago and I called for more things, and it’s all gone quiet again, so we still don’t know who they were for. 

"I think that there’s another independent inquiry, and hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of it. It will be nice to have some closure for everyone. It’s Disneyland really. We don’t know much more than we did in 2016."

Wiggins is currently involved with Eurosport’s coverage of the Giro d’Italia and provides the broadcaster with daily insight and analysis. It’s a role he has matured into over the last couple of years and his screen time is set to increase, with the former Tour winner to rekindle his working relationship with John Dower, who directed the 2013 release, 'A Year in Yellow' and who was behind the camera for the much-loved documentary 'The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop'.

"We’re going to do a follow-up with John Dower," Wiggins told Cyclingnews . "We did 'A Year in Yellow', obviously, and it’s 10 years next year so we’re going to revisit that really. There’s been a boom in cycling in the last 10 years but it will be nice to go back as a different person. 

"We’ve done a pilot for it and a lot of happened over the last couple of years. It will be nice to finally be able to talk about that and maybe show some stuff that shows how crazy it all got. That’s the running script at the moment, when it gets released, that’s going to be next year. I don’t know what the working title is but maybe 'Life after yellow'."

With GCN+ you can watch every km of the Giro live and ad free. For more details visit  https://welcome.globalcyclingnetwork.com/giro

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Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.

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Mark Cavendish: All 35 of Manx Missile's record-breaking stage victories at Tour de France to surpass Eddy Merckx

Updated 03/07/2024 at 17:05 GMT

Mark Cavendish carved his name into history on Wednesday as he became the all-time record holder for the most stage victories at the Tour de France. The 'Manx Missile' had been tied with the legendary Eddy Merckx on 34 stage wins since 2021, but the 39-year-old claimed the record outright with his 35th sprint victory on Stage 5. Stream the Tour de France live on discovery+.

Watch every single one of Cavendish's 35 Tour de France wins

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2007 – 0 wins

2008 – 4 wins.

Mark Cavendish wins his first ever stage of the Tour de France on stage 5 in 2008

Image credit: Getty Images

2009 – 6 wins 

Cavendish wins his first of four victories in a row on the iconic Champs-Elysees in Paris

2010 – 5 wins

Cavendish celebrates his fifth win of the 2010 Tour de France, stage 20 on the Champs-Elysees

2011 – 5 wins

Victory on the Champs-Elysees again in 2011 as Cavendish won the points classification for the first time

2012 – 3 wins

Victory on the Champs-Elysees again in 2012, this time in the rainbow world champion's jersey

2013 – 2 wins

Cavendish wins stage 13 of the 2013 Tour de France

2014 – 0 wins

2015 - 1 win.

Back to winning ways on stage 7 in 2015

2016 - 4 wins

Cavendish won the first stage of the 2016 Tour to sport yellow for the first time in his career

2017 – 0 wins

2018 – 0 wins, 2019 – not selected, 2020 – not selected, 2021 – 4 wins.

A historic 34th stage win on stage 13 in 2021

2022 – not selected

2023 – 0 wins, 2024 – 1 win.

'The greatest of all time!' – Cavendish lands astonishing 35th stage win at the Tour de France

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