Sir Bradley Wiggins

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is Sir Bradley Wiggins. For ten days in twenty twelve he held the nation in his spell, winning first the Tour de France and then an Olympic gold in London. We all went wiggo daft, eulogizing over his speed and tactical genius, and wearing cut out sideburns from the pages of the tabloids.

Presenter0:53

A few days of national fervour and enduring pride for us then, but a lifetime of focus, sacrifice, and physical punishment for him. There are very few in his sport who triumph on both track and road, yet his appeal isn't just the huge number of medals and trophies he's bagged.

Presenter1:10

Off the saddle his sharp wit and even sharper style give the impression of a man who has a life beyond the climb, the inflamed tendons, and the rampant will to win, we shall see.

Presenter1:22

There can be little doubt that cycling's in his blood. His parents met through the sport at the Paddington track where his father would train. But his dad deserted the family when Bradley was a toddler, and it was his mum and grandparents who bathed the grazed elbows and knees and cheered the little fellow on as a youngster. It's Sir Bradley now, of course. But the worldwide fame and frenzied adulation don't seem to have dulled his will to win. He will shortly attempt the world record for the furthest distance cycled in one hour. He'll also be competing at the next Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. He says

Presenter1:55

I'm just a kid from London, who happened to be good at cycling. So welcome, Sir Bradley Wiggins. I've also heard you say that as I've gotten older I've wanted more, I've realized what I'm capable of.

Presenter2:06

And I wonder, even after you know all the significant achievements, only some of which I've listed why on earth you want to still be putting yourself through it.

Sir Bradley Wiggins2:16

Because I love it, really. I think that's what I've realized the last few years, really. I think I went through a certain period where.

Sir Bradley Wiggins2:22

The pressure and the expectation was almost so great that you forgot why you were doing it in the first place. And it's only in the last few years, as I've I say I've got older and my children have got older that I realized why I fell in love with the sport in the first place. And you know, we're three years on now from twenty twelve and and it's almost taken that time to to realize what happened that couple of weeks to me.

Presenter2:43

And so that that winning of the Tour de France then, of course, as everybody knows, the first Briton ever to do it. Then within the next nine days, the London Olympics is ongoing. You win a gold physically and mentally at the end of that period, that month long period. Wh where did you stand? Could you stand?

Sir Bradley Wiggins3:00

Yeah, that that was the that was the difficult piece for me, that is is it was sort of coming to terms of all that. I was thirty two and I'd I'd done it for fifteen, sixteen years and I left early July for France, relatively unknown, and I came back um

Sir Bradley Wiggins3:16

Well, I guess pretty much uh you know

Presenter3:18

I'll say it a national hero.

Sir Bradley Wiggins3:19

Wow, it it seemed like uh at the time it felt like I was the most famous man in the country for that one week.

Presenter3:23

To that one.

Presenter3:24

Yeah.

Sir Bradley Wiggins3:25

And uh I'd you know press camped on my door. I couldn't comprehend that.

Sir Bradley Wiggins3:31

I think the day after the time troll, I'd been promising my daughter for a month that I'd take her and via a mini iPod. And I took her to Regent Street and I just got absolutely mobbed and then got back to the hotel and then the police were at the hotel and said that you can't just go wandering round the streets now. So I had a SAS guy, X SAS, who was now my bodyguard for the week. And it was just such a contrast from when I'd left home.

Presenter3:56

Yeah.

Sir Bradley Wiggins3:57

To get him back.

Presenter3:58

We've got to fit in the music, and actually, the first piece of music does root to you in that particular moment that you're talking about. So, just tell us why.

Sir Bradley Wiggins4:04

It's after five six days of celebrating.

Presenter4:04

Tough to five, six days.

Sir Bradley Wiggins4:07

enjoying being Olympic champion and trying to

Sir Bradley Wiggins4:11

To soak in what had just happened, I was invited to the Stone Roses private gig, and they just reformed that year. This band that I'd idolized as a kid. And I'd met Ian Brown a couple of times through the years as a solo artist. So I kind of went along with the wife, got there, walked in the room. I said, I need a drink, I feel really because I'm quite introvert anyway, and I feel uncomfortable in large groups of people. So I had my best suit on because I thought I'd better dress up for it.

Speaker 24:34

Mm-hmm.

Sir Bradley Wiggins4:41

And as soon as I walked in, Ian saw me across the room and called my name and went straight over to him. I was like, Ian, he hugged me and then I met the rest of the band. But I was taken aback that they knew who I was. It was just the bizarrest couple of minutes. And I tell you, like six weeks before this, no one in that room would have known who I was. And then we went from that hotel to the gig they started, and then I was just in awe. It took me back 20 years.

Speaker 44:59

The no

Speaker 45:06

Don't waste your words, I don't need anything from you.

Speaker 45:14

I don't care where you've been or what you plan to do

Speaker 45:22

I am the resurrection.

Speaker 45:31

Uh

Speaker 45:32

I hate you as I

Presenter5:39

So that was The Stern Roses and I Am the Resurrection. Um Bradley Wiggins, interestingly a moment ago, before that first piece of music you said you you're not great in a crowd, you're quite a sort of shy person. Are you difficult to get to know, do you think? Are you

Sir Bradley Wiggins5:51

Oh, I think so, yeah. I'm very guarded to begin with. And my way of of dealing with sort of being an introvert is to entertain. And it it goes back to my childhood at school. I was very much an individual at school, a bit of a class joker. And um I think that's continued.

Sir Bradley Wiggins6:08

Throughout my kind of career as well, really, it's the way I've got by. And I think in doing that, people underestimate you then as an athlete. And as I've come towards the end of my road career, they've gone interviewing a lot of ex-riders I used to race with. And every one of them has said, Oh, he was so funny. I saw him do this karaoke, Mick Jagger, one night, this, that, and the other. But we never expect him to win the tour of the front. I never saw that in him because they underestimate you then. So that's an advantage.

Presenter6:28

Hmm.

Presenter6:30

So that's an advantage if if you're opposed to it. When you were standing on the podium at the Tour de France, I think I saw two very distinct parts of your personality there. One of the things you said was you said, sometimes dreams come true, and to my mother over there, her son has now won the Tour de France.

Sir Bradley Wiggins6:32

Yeah.

Sir Bradley Wiggins6:41

Yeah.

Presenter6:48

Very poignant. And then a little later you say we're going to start drawing the raffle numbers now, which was h a hugely funny thing to say at the most significant moment of the money.

Sir Bradley Wiggins6:57

Well, that was me. That was the 14-year-old me in school. You know, just being.

Presenter7:01

Yeah.

Sir Bradley Wiggins7:01

Yeah.

Presenter7:01

Yeah.

Sir Bradley Wiggins7:01

Saying something. Even in a serious moment, where I had to probably thank all the dignitaries in front of me. Kind of quite rebellious in that sense. I'm very sort of anti the VIPs in the front row, or lucky enough to get a ticket when the people closest to you that should have the credit for those things, i.e., my wife and children, could never get close enough in those important periods. And you end up being hugged by people you've never met that weren't there along the journey. And obviously, you had to go up on the Chands-Elysée, all these dignitaries, you know, Chirac, Hollande, and all this in the front row. And immediately, my natural instinct, you know, as the boy from Kilburn, was to turn around and just face all the British people that had travelled and paid their ardurn money to come out and watch. They were the ones I wanted to thank, not Pinky and Perky in the front row. So that was a sober me doing my kind of introvert piece.

Presenter7:51

Let's go to your second piece of music then. What what is this and wha why have you chosen it?

Sir Bradley Wiggins7:55

Um so this is the first piece of music I remember thinking, I like that. This was released in nineteen eighty six, so I don't know if I was six or seven. It just struck me those opening chords, Mars guitar in through it, and it's just stayed with me ever since. Whenever I hear it, I have to turn it up and it's it's just an incredible song.

Speaker 48:21

To the stillness, to the smarshes, pending like a bar between arches. A very loneliness with a head and a sling. I'm truly sorry, but it found like a wonderful thing.

Speaker 48:37

I say child don't you ever play

Speaker 48:41

To appear on the front of the Daily Mail

Presenter8:49

That was the Smiths and The Queen is Dead. So Bradley Wiggins, as I said in the introduction, you come from a cycling family. Your mum and dad, Gary and Linda, d tell me about how they met.

Sir Bradley Wiggins8:55

Um

Sir Bradley Wiggins8:59

Uh my father was Australian. He came over in the early seventies. You know, he wanted to conquer the European scene, so he came to to London, first put a call, and he ended up racing on uh the old track at Paddington. And my mother, just living round the corner, used to go down as a as a teenager and watch it and um

Sir Bradley Wiggins9:18

And then obviously, you know, fell in love with this Australian dark haired Ozzie and they they moved in together, had me and I think certainly in in Gary's eyes I don't think he fully

Sir Bradley Wiggins9:30

So the responsibilities of having a child aren't that you know he was always in the sh there for the sh in the short term as it were.

Presenter9:35

And he was a good cyclist, was he?

Sir Bradley Wiggins9:37

He wasn't bad. Uh from what people say he was um he had the talent to be a lot better than he was, but he he was um he was a real hard man, like really, really hard man and um liked to drink, liked to do a couple of other bits and bobs and his nickname was The Doc.

Presenter9:53

His nickname was the dock because what he he supplied amphetamines, didn't he?

Sir Bradley Wiggins9:56

Uh, he did a bit of everything, yeah. In those days it was amphetamine speed basically and and um yes, uh Gary used to was he's a a user and he used to sell it as well, so

Sir Bradley Wiggins10:08

It's funny actually, you know, off obviously with the Lance Armstrong the last few years. My mum's got some great stories about the people that used to come through our apartment door when I was a baby to buy stuff off my dad, who are now banging the drum that oh, I never did anything. So it's quite it's quite funny.

Presenter10:24

I mean, since you bring up Lance Armstrong, that shadow that he cast was long and heavy. Do you feel now that people can watch cycling now and be assured that it is a clean and decent sport?

Sir Bradley Wiggins10:35

I think like in most walks of life, I think you'll always get people who try and cheat, especially when the rewards are so high financially.

Sir Bradley Wiggins10:43

And people are still catching them. But I think cycling in particular has had a rough time the last few years and I think.

Sir Bradley Wiggins10:50

It's come to the stage now where they've realized that they have to do something about it, otherwise, the sport won't exist anymore. Does it feel different to you? I mean, is somebody else's family? Oh, yeah, definitely.

Presenter10:57

Gi given y your ambition and your uh uh obvious determination, w were were you ever tempted?

Sir Bradley Wiggins11:04

Not at all. No.

Presenter11:05

One very brief question, just linking this back to your father. I read, and I'd I'd love to know if it's true, that that he once smuggled amphetamines through customs in your Nappy.

Sir Bradley Wiggins11:14

Yeah, that's what my mum said, yeah.

Sir Bradley Wiggins11:16

Yeah.

Presenter11:17

Do you think that gave you a particularly strong view of of what you didn't want to associate with?

Sir Bradley Wiggins11:22

Well, I think uh I think all the events that happened after that, obviously he abandoned us and also what it did to him, you know. He became incredibly violent and angry person and um you know the effects of that I think lived with me. So that all those things just formed this incredible strong opinion. And actually, if he had been around and stayed around throughout my teenage years, I wouldn't have been a cyclist because he'd have been so hard and so critical of me, I'd have just packed it in and gone and done something else, got a proper job.

Presenter11:54

Let's put in some music, Bradley Wiggins. Tell me about your third track.

Sir Bradley Wiggins11:59

So this track is quite an odd one. I don't think people are all.

Sir Bradley Wiggins12:02

Chas and Dave.

Presenter12:04

I think they'll like it.

Sir Bradley Wiggins12:04

Oh, you don't think it's a good idea?

Presenter12:05

Well I don't have to be honest.

Sir Bradley Wiggins12:08

Obviously, when Gary abandoned us, we moved in with my grandparents and my grandfather became my father figure and my role model throughout my childhood, you know, whether it was pumping up my tyres or

Sir Bradley Wiggins12:20

Teaching me odds at betting, you know, all those things, and even introducing me to Chaz and Dave, you know, and it reminds me of my childhood, this song, and being at my nan's house on Christmas with all the family around. And after they watched The Queen on the telly, going down the British Legion and playing darts and things like that, and playing cards for entertainment as a family, it seems that times have changed, and it's not like that anymore. And Chaz and Dave kind of summed that up for me a little bit. And they're rock royalty, and I love them.

Speaker 412:50

Now that's what I like

Speaker 412:55

Buy a match and liquor, a book in the band of rain, will your books come in?

Speaker 413:02

Build on.

Speaker 413:04

Up from school, colder cobbles are fun to storm the plates on the wallets and all. Grandpapa glocks a coke of brandy, found it better than bean and dandy.

Speaker 413:13

As one online

Speaker 413:16

That's what

Presenter13:18

Chas and Dave, and that's what I like, and memories for you, Sir Bradley Wiggins, of those early childhood days in the nineteen eighties. I I'd I'd be really fascinated to know a little bit more about your mother, because you know you you were sleeping on a sofa after Gary abandoned you and your mum. Uh she was back with her parents. How did she get herself out of that situation and into her own flat?

Sir Bradley Wiggins13:37

So my mum had two sisters and um so they were living we were living in a a two bedroom flat in in Kilburn with my grandparents, me and my mum and her two sisters. So we were in the living room and uh you know, she ended up getting a flat uh just across the way from from where my nan lived and got herself a job. So she was she was quite a strong woman and I think she just lived for me from that moment on really.

Presenter14:00

I've seen a brilliant photograph of you. I think you look like you're about five years old on I don't know, is it your first bike? When did you get your first bike?

Sir Bradley Wiggins14:07

I think I must have been about four actually, yeah, a BMX thing. Me nan said, Oh, yeah, you wanted your stabilizer straight away So, um, my granddad took'em off and I was off and I fell off and then I went off and I fell off and then I had it and I went and that was it.

Presenter14:09

I'd be a ma

Sir Bradley Wiggins14:22

I don't recall that, but it it sounds good now, twenty years on after you when you win the tour, you know, and it makes it makes a nice story.

Presenter14:24

Yeah.

Presenter14:26

When you talk about it.

Presenter14:29

Um it was the summer of nineteen ninety two. You would have been twelve and your mother called you in to watch something significant on

Sir Bradley Wiggins14:33

And you're more than a very good.

Sir Bradley Wiggins14:35

Yeah, I used to in the summer holidays I used to go to West Ham summer soccer schools over in East End and I remember playing football outside and she it must have been about five, six o'clock when she called me in to watch Chris Borman's final. And it was quite a short event and obviously every lap they came round you got the split screen of where he was in relation to the other guy. So you after a while you soon got the gist that he was actually catching this guy.

Sir Bradley Wiggins14:59

And Chris Corton went over the top and won the Olympic gold on this Space Age bike.

Presenter15:04

And that was a Barcelona element.

Sir Bradley Wiggins15:05

Yeah, that's such an influential thing for me. Chris winning and Chris being British and doing it on that bike. All of a sudden the bike was was mainstream news. It was a talking point and he became quite famous and he was a household name and and so that that was a hugely inspirational thing for me.

Presenter15:21

When Chris Boardman, you know, ten years later, was the man who was going to help you to win, did you ever talk to him about that moment?

Sir Bradley Wiggins15:27

Occasionally, yeah, yeah, but in more in a geeky kind of way, because I'm quite a historian of cycling and I know everything, like details that probably more than he does about what he was wearing that day or what wheels he had in, what gear he was riding. And he'd just sit there, sort of aghast at the fact I knew all this stuff. He'd sort of sit there, just sort of shaking his head that, God, you're quite a sad kid, weren't you, really? You know, that kind of way. But I was quite an odd child, really, to be honest. I mean, I used to leave where I lived in Dibdin House in Millycra and be called all sorts, you know.

Sir Bradley Wiggins16:00

Now you've got people to look up to in the likes of Chris Hoy, Mark Cavendish. Then it was like, What are you doing wearing that? But I was just like, Sodgia, I want to be Olympic champion.

Presenter16:11

We're going to go to some music now, Bradley. Tell me about this. We're on your fourth of the morning.

Presenter16:16

What is it? Why have you chosen this one?

Sir Bradley Wiggins16:17

By injury, it's a little bit for similar reasons to Chas and Dave in that.

Sir Bradley Wiggins16:23

They're quite a rebellious band and I've always loved that kind of rebellion in people and that's probably why I'm such a huge fan of the jam and oasis. Especially as a kid and and just going off to what I was just talking about then I wanted to be a cyclist and kind of be an outcast for that. This kind of music gave me confidence to fulfil that really.

Speaker 416:43

Reasons to be Cheerful, Part Three.

Speaker 416:47

Summer Buddy Holly, the working folly, good golly Miss Molly and boats. Hammersmith Pully, the Bolshawi Bally, jump back in the alley and nanny goats. 18 Miller's Camels, Dominica Camels, all other members plus equal boats. Seeing Piccadilly, Fanny Smith and Willie, being rather silly, and porriage oats. I bet you Brennan Barrett, she would have come and share it. You're working, we can spare it. Yellow as socks, too short to be haughty, too nutty to be naughty. Going on faulty, no electric shots. The juice of the carrot, the smile of the parrot, a little drop of clarot, anything that wants. Healthy sound scottage, days when I had spotted. Sitting on the cocktail, curious smallpox.

Presenter17:12

Please.

Presenter17:20

Ian Jury and the Blockheads and Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3. So Bradley Wiggins, then you started cycling really in earnest at the Hearne Hill Velodrome in South London. You were successful, well, really very quickly indeed. By the age of sixteen, you won gold, silver and bronze at the Junior National Track Championships. You then went on to be Junior World Champion at eighteen.

Presenter17:40

Was there anything else in your life? I mean, were you did you date girls? Did you have

Sir Bradley Wiggins17:44

No, no, there was nothing else, really, at all.

Sir Bradley Wiggins17:47

My mum sent me back to sixth form just so I could do something. I ended up sort of kind of bunking off most days to go out on my bike. And the teachers were unaware of that. And then I won the junior worlds and they all kind of just said, Well, how long have you been doing this? I'm like, six years. Why didn't you say anything? Didn't feel the need to. You know what I mean? It was just I was quite happy for them to underestimate me and think I was a complete dropkick. And I didn't want them publicising me and using me then as, oh, you know, announcing it in assembly, you know, oh, Bradley's doing this. He's just wanna.

Sir Bradley Wiggins18:20

reason or whatever at the weekend I I thought no don't want to do that you know

Presenter18:23

Why didn't you want that?

Sir Bradley Wiggins18:24

Because I just I didn't want to stand out from the crowd, I just wanted to be anonymous. And uh do me time. I did see school like that a little bit like just serving me time. Let's get out of here and then we can crack on with what you're really after.

Presenter18:39

And did you tell your mummy I know?

Sir Bradley Wiggins18:40

Oh yeah, she was fully supportive of that.

Sir Bradley Wiggins18:43

You know, re it really was. And and I don't know if that was stupid of her or what, because looking back, you know, if my son said that to me, I'll probably go, Well, actually mate, you know, you need to you need to knuckle down at school here, really, because

Presenter18:53

Especially given her experience with your

Sir Bradley Wiggins18:55

Yeah, but she was just like, I don't know. And fortunately, it all worked out for the best, but I don't know, really. I don't know if she just.

Sir Bradley Wiggins19:02

She wanted me to pursue my dreams, really.

Presenter19:04

You had lottery funding then. Presumably that enabled you to that was sort of a little bit of a matter of time.

Sir Bradley Wiggins19:07

By the time I was eighteen, yeah. So nineteen ninety eight I I got funded and yeah, but that allowed me to

Sir Bradley Wiggins19:15

pay me mum and stuff, you know, for rent and all that kind of stuff.

Presenter19:18

How difficult was it? I mean, I don't want to I don't want to the violin strings playing in the background here, but presumably, you know, to get a good bike, to train, to have the right diet, that I mean, that all costs money.

Sir Bradley Wiggins19:27

Oh yeah. I mean my mum put herself in fifty thousand pound debt, you know, to service my sporting career in a

Presenter19:32

Did she? And that's a huge amount of debt.

Sir Bradley Wiggins19:35

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. But that that was what she was willing to do for me, you know, and did everything for me to to pursue my dreams.

Presenter19:42

Have you given her a big treat to say thank you? I mean, now you're in the position not just of being served.

Sir Bradley Wiggins19:45

Just being so rich. Yeah, I I guess, yeah, I mean, I look after her, you know. She's not a woman who wants a great deal in return and I think she's just content, you know, and proud maybe of the fact that I've I've held a marriage for twelve years and that I've got two kids and, you know, those kind of things and like the fundamental things, more than the sport, you know, not the fact I've won the tour and all this, but just that I've become a good person.

Presenter20:08

Let's have some more music, Sir Bradley Wiggins. Um, it's your fifth. Tell me about this.

Sir Bradley Wiggins20:13

So, this one, you know, go again, spoke a lot about my teenage years, and I was 14 years of age, so right at a kind of critical, kind of influential stage of my life. And, you know, one track in particular that gave me confidence to go out there that was rock and roll star. And just the lyrics of that, you know, living your life in the city and there's no easy way out. I used to sit in the back of the car going to race at Ernil with me, Walkman, listen to this, just feeling 10 feet tall, and felt like I could take on the world.

Speaker 420:46

People say it's just a waste of time. Then they said I should be my

Speaker 420:55

That to me was just a day in bed. I'll take my car and drive real far. Ain't not concerned about the way we are. In my mind, my dreams are real. Now you're concerned about the way I feel tonight.

Speaker 421:15

Black Rose

Presenter21:19

That was Oasis and Rock and Roll Star. Um at the Athens Olympics then, we shouldn't forget that that was in two thousand four that you were the first British athlete since I think it was nineteen sixty four to win three medals there. I mean that was a phenomenal, significant achievement.

Sir Bradley Wiggins21:32

From this f

Sir Bradley Wiggins21:34

Yeah, I mean that was a um I was twenty four there and I'd I'd you know, going back that twelve years of saying I wanted to be Olympic champion when I was at school and also at that period my wife told me she was pregnant.

Presenter21:47

Just before Athens, just a couple of days before Athens.

Sir Bradley Wiggins21:47

Just a couple of days before. So I had this I had this kind of inc you know, incredible happiness and um it was a really emotionally fueled Olympic final because for for twenty four years it had been about me winning the Olympic gold. And now it was about my wife to be and the child we were about to have.

Presenter22:05

Is it true that after those that that three medal win at Athens in two thousand four, before the birth of your first child, you did go on a complete I mean, I've I've read it described as a nine month bender.

Sir Bradley Wiggins22:17

It felt like that. I mean, not it wasn't to the extent of I didn't spend all my teenage years drinking and going out partying and things like that. You know, it was um I'd achieved this thing then twenty four and it was like

Sir Bradley Wiggins22:28

What do I do now? You know what it doesn't it doesn't feel how I thought it was gonna feel.

Presenter22:32

Did you think it was gonna make you feel complete? Did you feel that if you won the medals that was gonna be a

Sir Bradley Wiggins22:37

I think so, but I think also at that age, when you're a kid, you just want you want fame and money. Obviously, those things have changed now for me as I got older. But at that you know, when you you think people are gonna knock the door down writing checks out for a couple of million to you, and that didn't happen, you know, and we still couldn't pay the mortgage and all those things.

Presenter22:53

So you've got the medal sitting in a cabinet, but you're still scaling.

Sir Bradley Wiggins22:54

But you're still skipping. I had this incredible guilt that I was Olympic champion, I wasn't supporting the family. So I I I kind of have a bit of slight d of depression about the whole thing really. It didn't live up to the expectation of what I assumed winning Olympic gold was going to be about.

Presenter23:09

How did you get your head screwed back on, then?

Sir Bradley Wiggins23:11

So that happened in August. I was my son was born at the end of March and um as soon as that happened for me that was it then. It was like I had another reason in the world to provide for this person. And then that started bringing up all the old kind of stuff of my own father and why did he leave me when I was this age.

Presenter23:26

Sure.

Presenter23:29

We're going to come back to that. We're going to have some music just now. Tell me then about

Sir Bradley Wiggins23:29

What the f

Presenter23:33

Your sixth piece

Sir Bradley Wiggins23:35

Um I met my wife in two thousand two and we first met when I was fifteen. We were on the junior team together, junior squad. And um we were both into the Rolling Stones. And we used to just play this to death when we were caught in it reminds me of a very happy time where I'd met someone, I it was the first proper girlfriend and I was gonna spend the rest of my life with her and that was it. I asked her to marry me after a week. So it was sort of love at first sight and we're still together. She's put up with me all these years.

Speaker 424:05

Roll the tank, held a generous rank When the bliss cream raged and the bodies fan

Speaker 424:16

Pleased to meet you!

Speaker 424:17

Home, you guess my stupid day.

Speaker 424:21

Oh yeah.

Speaker 424:22

I was possessing you with the nature of my game.

Speaker 424:29

Ah yes.

Speaker 424:31

I watch the gleam

Presenter24:34

That was the Rolling Stones and sympathy for the devil. We were talking a moment ago, Bradley Wiggins, about the moment when you became a father and watching your first child in those first few months and the realization well, it sort of brought it home to you really, that that your dad had gone when you were you know just I mean you were two.

Sir Bradley Wiggins24:44

Okay.

Sir Bradley Wiggins24:52

One and a half, yeah. I I never had any contact with him until again until I was eighteen. And um we sort of built up a telephone relationship and eventually after about a year or so I flew out there and met him and he was living on a caravan park and didn't have a lot to his name, you know, banned from driving and every now and again he'd just sort of go off on one and and drink himself into stupor and and he kept going on about I want to make up for the eighteen years and then it suddenly sort of dawned well how did not so much at that age but when I had my own son that I realized

Speaker 225:23

I mean

Sir Bradley Wiggins25:24

you know, not only the child, how could you leave and not have have any contact or wonder in some stage of what what he's up to, but the mother as well, you know, and list leave without a kind of any word of what you were up to or money or anything like that. And as it's gone on quite that is sort of more quite tough really.

Presenter25:42

Have you res have you sort of worked that one out in your own head? Are you?

Sir Bradley Wiggins25:45

No, I don't think I'll ever get over that, really. And I always sort of crops up at at moments. My own son asking me questions about my own father.

Sir Bradley Wiggins25:54

Did your dad used to take you out on your bike, daddy? Or, you know, did he put your shoe cleats on? Or and I say, No, he wasn't, you know, so so tho those sort of things really, you know. And and then in 2008 I had a phone call out of the blue saying he'd been murdered. So it was good that was all difficult. And even then when I won the tour de France it all cropped up again, you know, newspapers running stories like, you know, that it's amazing he's turned out where he is today considering what so all these kind of things really and it's just uh it it's never left me and it will continue to stay with me for the rest of my life really.

Presenter26:25

What s what sort of father are you?

Presenter26:29

The f

Sir Bradley Wiggins26:29

Uh Just just um

Sir Bradley Wiggins26:33

Myself, really. I think just be there for them every step of the way. Never in never put my own expectations onto them, what they want to be or what they want to do. I think I always have a a guilt that I've never I haven't been there enough for them. I always felt when I'm sat up on top of mountains for three weeks training that I'm not there, missing their birthdays and things like that. Can I reassure you?

Presenter26:56

What the f

Sir Bradley Wiggins26:56

Type

Presenter26:56

But every single parent.

Sir Bradley Wiggins26:57

Yes, that's not just also, you know, aside from that, I've had an incredibly supportive wife and those children are the way they are today because of my wife and and her investment in them. And we're a team in that sense. You know, without her I couldn't have gone away and done all this stuff, like the Tour de France and that. But the year before that, twelve months before I crashed out of the Tour de France when I was the favourite and broke my collarbone.

Presenter27:21

I know I've seen the fitted it looks agonising.

Sir Bradley Wiggins27:22

I was back home, that was it, and in agony. And I won't tell you what I was doing, but she had to assist with it because I was unable to do it. And those bad times, no one else sees that. So, yeah, you know. And the next song, obviously, you know, it something encapsulates all that for me because I remember I was off racing and I missed my son's birth because I couldn't get back in time. And I missed it by a few hours, got to the hospital, saw him for the first time. And I went home and I put T-Rex on, and it was on shuffle, and this was the first track that came on, and it was Cosmic Dancer.

Speaker 427:58

I was dancing when I was eight.

Speaker 428:04

Tis your strength to dance a late

Speaker 428:10

Visit strange to town Sunday

Speaker 428:22

I dance myself into the toll

Speaker 428:28

I dance myself into the tune

Presenter28:32

That was T-Rex and Cosmic Dancer. So, Sir Bradley Wiggins, there is a particularly wonderful photograph of you and your wife and children, all very beautifully turned out, and you're at Buckingham Palace, and you are picking up your knighthood. When you opened the letter informing you that the honour had been b bestowed in twenty twelve, tell me, you know, as this person who is, as you say, by your own description, highly individualistic, a bit of a loner, not necessarily an establishment figure by any stretch of the imagination, when you saw that you were being honoured with a knighthood, what did you think?

Sir Bradley Wiggins29:01

By any speaker.

Sir Bradley Wiggins29:07

M

Sir Bradley Wiggins29:09

It was quite strange actually. I never saw myself as a sir or anything. And I remember I said to my nan that I wasn't going to accept it. And my granddad had died in 2010. And she said, You stupid, you bloody crazy. You've got to accept that. George will turn in his grave if you turn that down. And I sort of saw it from my nan's point of view. She must remember when I was a baby in that flat, and obviously where we grew up, there's not many people who become Knights of the Realm. I never use it. People use it, but I never use it.

Sir Bradley Wiggins29:40

And when I was a kid, if someone had come to our school that used to go there, that was a knight at the Realm Olympic champion, won the Tour de France.

Sir Bradley Wiggins29:48

And they said to them, Well, I want to do what Bradley's done. Then the teachers there now would go, Well, of course you can because he's done it, he's from here.

Sir Bradley Wiggins29:56

And it's that inspiration thing really. And but also I love the sort of history of it and what it what it used to stand for back in Henry VIII times. You know, knights that would go out to battle and come back and be rewarded. That's almost quite true to sport. And Paul Weller actually gave me the nod on it. We were talking about it in our tailors one day.

Presenter30:14

I'm just going to enjoy that image for a moment. You and Paul Weller standing in the Taylor's.

Sir Bradley Wiggins30:17

Weller stuff.

Sir Bradley Wiggins30:19

He got because I know what Paul thinks about all that sort of stuff, and he said.

Sir Bradley Wiggins30:23

He said it's different for sport. As soon as he said that, I was like, right, I better take it then. So I kind of had his blessing.

Presenter30:29

It is extraordinary, and it will be to a lot of people who've watched your career to see that there's no Jam or Paul Weller in your list today.

Sir Bradley Wiggins30:35

Yeah, because that was the obvious stuff. So I had to take quite a firm stance on that and say, well, I'm going to try and be a little bit different. And actually, I've been quite honest on this interview, and actually.

Presenter30:45

Quite honest.

Sir Bradley Wiggins30:46

Well, yeah.

Sir Bradley Wiggins30:48

And stuff that's really personal to me that has significance at certain periods in my life. So yeah, it as as my as much as my love for Paul and and everything he's done, you know, it couldn't all be about Paul Weller.

Presenter30:51

December

Presenter31:01

Um next month you're going to be attempting the record for the farthest distance cycled in an hour. You're thirty-five now. Do you worry you're up to it?

Sir Bradley Wiggins31:10

Oh no, I'm I'm uh very confident. I wouldn't do it if I didn't think I could do it.

Sir Bradley Wiggins31:15

But it's also part of the challenge, you know, that's these are the kind of things that have always driven me, these huge goals. I'm only going to do it once, it kind of top off everything else that I've done and doing it in London as well, where it's all started, it's kind of fit in really.

Presenter31:29

Tell me about the final track for the day.

Sir Bradley Wiggins31:31

Well just going on what everything I've just said then this guy I've got I never used wasn't a big fan of Bowie as a kid but as I got older I've I've sort of appreciated him almost like a fine wine really and you know he releases albums does no PR about it. He seems incredibly happy for the the odd photo you do see of him walking around New York in his hat and you know cap on with his daughter and his wife and it in some ways it's a vision of how I want to be when I'm his age, having done it all and just being happy and reclusive and can look back and tell a good story. And this song, you know, kind of being on a desert island, you could just listen to and never get tired of and play it on loop almost.

Speaker 232:17

What's the colour of my room where I will live?

Speaker 432:29

Pale blinds, drawn on game

Speaker 432:37

Blue blue

Speaker 432:42

I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and vision.

Presenter32:49

That was David Bowie and Sound and Vision. So, Bradley Wiggins, I'm casting you away now. You you get to take the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare and one other book to the island. What will you take along with those?

Sir Bradley Wiggins33:00

I'm not a big book reader, if I'm honest. The only books I ever have read have always been sort of books that I find I could get inspiration from. And one of my biggest heroes from another sport was Michael Johnson. The way he was, he seemed a a real gentleman. He was just so focused on what. And I I loved that about him. He he did a book after Atlanta, slightly autobiographical, and also talking about his training methods and coping strategies. And I take that with me as a reminder as to why I'm here today.

Presenter33:28

We shall give you that. You're allowed a luxury as well.

Sir Bradley Wiggins33:30

I'd take a photo of my family.

Presenter33:32

You can even have a whole album.

Sir Bradley Wiggins33:34

Photo album then.

Presenter33:34

Right. It's yours. Finally, if you had to save just one of these disks, which one would it be?

Sir Bradley Wiggins33:39

The last one I'd like that being played when I leave the world.

Presenter33:42

Okay. It's yours, Sir Bradley Wiggins. Thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Sir Bradley Wiggins33:47

Thank you.

Presenter34:28

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.