Bradley Wiggins credits Mark Cavendish as "one of the few" who checked in on him during dark days: "His greatness on the bike is surpassed by his friendship off it"

When Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish sat side-by-side on BBC Radio 2 with Dermot O’Leary, it felt like more than just a reunion of two old teammates — it was the rekindling of a bond forged across some of British cycling’s most golden, and most turbulent, years.

For Wiggins, the moment was one of rare vulnerability. “I never thought I’d ever swing my leg over a bike again a year ago,” he admitted with honesty. “I became really disheartened with cycling four or five years ago. I became quite bitter. So that’s been liberating for me.”

The five-time Olympic champion has often spoken in the past about the weight of expectation that followed his 2012 Tour de France triumph — the first by any Briton — and how life afterwards became a long road to rediscovering joy in the sport. Hearing that confession, Cavendish immediately reached across the table. “Well done. So proud of you, mate — you know that?”

Wiggins smiled, then revealed why his former Madison partner had meant so much to him in that process. “Mark’s been a big part of that. He’s one of the few people who always checked in on me. His greatness on the bike is surpassed by his friendship off it, for me.”

It’s a friendship that has weathered the full spectrum of sporting life. From the velodrome boards of Manchester in 2008, where they won world gold in the Madison, to the Champs-Élysées in 2012 when Wiggins, dressed in yellow, famously led Cavendish out for victory — their careers have always seemed to intertwine at key crossroads.

Even when tensions ran high during their shared season at Team Sky, the pair’s respect for one another never truly faded. Four years later they reunited on the track at the London World Championships, and once again claimed the Madison world title together — a fitting bookend to the partnership that had kick-started British Cycling’s modern era.

That history made Cavendish’s words on BBC Radio 2 hit even harder. “That’s the same — the things you’ve done for me. And we haven’t always talked like this. We argued a lot, didn’t we?”

He went on to recall Wiggins’s quiet guidance behind his own Olympic success. “I wouldn’t have won my Olympic medal without him. He showed me how to do a pursuit. I did the Omnium, which is like a mishmash of races, and I wouldn’t have won a medal without him. How he rides that, and how he’s ridden for me — like on the Champs-Élysées, what he did…”

Then, with typical Cavendish sincerity, he brought it back to belief — the one currency they’ve both traded on through decades of comebacks. “Do you know what the biggest thing is? His belief in me these last years. That comes from knowing me, not from looking from the outside and saying, if you can win at 40 years old. His belief in me meant a lot, you know.”