Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Cyclist who became the first Briton to win the Tour de France and an Olympic gold in 2012.
On the island
Eight records
After five or six days of celebrating, I was invited to the Stone Roses private gig… I was just in awe. It took me back 20 years.
This is the first piece of music I remember thinking, I like that. This was released in 1986… it's just stayed with me ever since.
It reminds me of my childhood, and being at my nan's house on Christmas with all the family around… Chas and Dave kind of summed that up for me.
Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3
They're quite a rebellious band and I've always loved that kind of rebellion in people… this kind of music gave me confidence to fulfil that really.
One track in particular that gave me confidence to go out there that was rock and roll star… I used to sit in the back of the car going to race… just feeling 10 feet tall.
We used to just play this to death when we were courting… it reminds me of a very happy time where I'd met someone… I asked her to marry me after a week.
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.
Sound and VisionFavourite
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… you could just listen to and never get tired of.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:06Even after all your achievements, why on earth do you still want to put yourself through it?
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… 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 got older and my children have got older that I realized why I fell in love with the sport in the first place.
Presenter asks
2:43After winning the Tour de France and then an Olympic gold within nine days, physically and mentally where did you stand? Could you stand?
Yeah, that was the difficult piece for me, it was sort of coming to terms of all that. I was thirty two and I'd done it for fifteen, sixteen years and I left early July for France, relatively unknown, and I came back… it seemed like at the time it felt like I was the most famous man in the country for that one week. … I'd press camped on my door. I couldn't comprehend that. I think the day after the time trial, I'd been promising my daughter for a month that I'd take her to 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, ex-SAS, who was now my bodyguard for the week. And it was just such a contrast from when I'd left home.
The keepsakes
The book
Michael Johnson
one of my biggest heroes from another sport was Michael Johnson... 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.
Presenter asks
10:24Do you feel that people can watch cycling now and be assured that it is a clean and decent sport?
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. … And people are still catching them. But I think cycling in particular has had a rough time the last few years and I think… 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.
Presenter asks
22:05Is it true that after your three medals at Athens in 2004, before the birth of your first child, you went on what's been described as a nine-month bender?
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… I'd achieved this thing then twenty four and it was like… what do I do now? … it doesn't feel how I thought it was gonna feel. … I think so, but I think also at that age, when you're a kid, you just want fame and money. … when you think people are gonna knock the door down writing checks out for a couple of million to you, and that didn't happen, and we still couldn't pay the mortgage… I had this incredible guilt that I was Olympic champion, I wasn't supporting the family. So I kind of had a bit of slight 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.
Presenter asks
25:42Have you worked out your father's abandonment in your own head?
No, I don't think I'll ever get over that, really. And it always crops up at moments. My own son asking me questions about my own father. … Did your dad used to take you out on your bike, daddy? Or, you know, did he put your shoe cleats on? And I say, No, he wasn't… and then in 2008 I had a phone call out of the blue saying he'd been murdered. … even when I won the tour de France it all cropped up again… it's never left me and it will continue to stay with me for the rest of my life really.
Presenter asks
28:32When you opened the letter informing you of your knighthood in 2012, what did you think?
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. … And when I was a kid, if someone had come to our school that used to go there, that was a knight of the Realm Olympic champion, won the Tour de France… 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.' … And it's that inspiration thing really. … Paul Weller actually gave me the nod on it. … 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.
“It felt like I was the most famous man in the country for that one week.”
“I had this incredible guilt that I was Olympic champion, I wasn't supporting the family.”
“No, I don't think I'll ever get over that, really.”
“I never saw myself as a sir or anything.”
“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.”