Bradley Wiggins, Men's Health Cover Star, Reflects on a Turbulent 10-Year Ride
19.04.2022 - 14:20
/ msn.com
Men's Health, our cover star speaks exclusive to Alastair Campbell for our Talking Heads series of interviews about the importance of mental health and his love/hate relationship with cycling. “They went hand in hand. I had an acute ability to understand my body inside out.
I don’t think I had extreme physical talent, it was an understanding of how to make the bike faster. In time trials, I could ride to one watt of where I was meant to be. Others surge and go 50 watts over.
I could manage it – like a car’s cruise control. That’s physical and mental together. ” “I have to have routine.
Training every day, it’s important. Not drinking too much… With my depression, if I’m not looking after myself it manifests more like a mania. I always thought of depression as taking you to a dark room in a stoop.
I try to be funnier and end up being shocking and contentious. ”“In 2012, after winning the Tour de France, then winning at the Olympics. Life was never the same again.
I was thrust into this fame and adulation that came with the success… 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. ”“Oh yeah, we go back 20 years. He’s like a big brother, just maybe one I don’t talk to all the time.
But you couldn’t go through all the success we had – British Cycling, Team Sky – without a bond. ” “Absolutely. He probably expected me to be more like him.