Bradley Wiggins "dedicated my life to cycling as a distraction" as a result of sexual abuse trauma

Bradley Wiggins, 2012 Tour de France winner and Olympic gold medalist, recently confessed on Fearne Cotton's Happy Place podcast that he was abused by a coach for three years: "he was on the verge of sexual abuse and rape".

The Briton did not name the coach who made his life miserable, but he did confess that he used cycling as a distraction from other problems that plagued him and that he now "hates cycling".

"This happened over a three-year period. I don't remember how many times it happened. We're talking about incidents from very minor to borderline rape, sexual abuse, whatever term you want to use," he commented on his unfortunate experiences.

So last year the London-born cyclist launched a campaign against child abuse with the slogan "Listen, speak out." He recalls that to give the campaign more visibility he had to look back at the abuse he suffered and what hurt him most when he looked back was remembering the abuser's face.

"I had to relive some of the little incidents that happened to me with this coach to add weight to the campaign," Wiggins said. "In recalling these things to add weight to the interviews and try to really reinforce them, I realized I was recalling a lot of the incidents in my head over and over again...particularly this guy's face."

He confesses, as usual, that it affected him tremendously: "It affected me a lot. I have to be careful what I do to help people at the expense of myself. My biggest shame was that another man had done that to me. I couldn't get my head around how abnormal it was, especially at 13 years old. It's a trauma. From that moment on, I pretended it didn't happen and dedicated my life to cycling as a distraction.

Regarding his successful career as a professional cyclist, in which he achieved a multitude of successes, he says he was never in love with cycling and that for him it was more like a religion.

"I don't pay any interest to cycling now, I couldn't care less," Wiggins said. "I don't watch cycling anymore and I don't care about it. It filled a big void in my life with a view to being close to my dad. People say it's a shame I fell in love with cycling, but I never fell in love with it, it was like a religion."

He finishes by stating that he hated cycling: "You don't fall in love with a religion, you adopt a religion. Now I've left my faith. I can't stand it. I hated cycling, I really did. The act of cycling was a means to facilitate what I wanted to do with my life."