Bradley Wiggins: Lance Armstrong offered to pay for my therapy

Sir Bradley Wiggins has revealed that disgraced former cyclist Lance Armstrong has offered to pay for him to have therapy in the United States to help with his mental-health struggles.

Wiggins, the five-time Olympic champion and Britain’s first Tour de France winner, has had a bankruptcy claim against him double to almost £2 million in recent weeks, as his fall from grace continues.

The 44-year-old lost his Lancashire home, which was put up for sale for almost £1 million, and was said to have been “sofa surfing” since the bankruptcy was declared, according to his lawyer Alan Sellers.

But the British cyclist has revealed that Armstrong has been trying to help rebuild his life and offered to fund treatment in the US as part of that process.

“You know, we’re talking about therapy,” Wiggins told the High Performance Podcast, hosted by former BBC and BT Sport presenter Jake Humphrey and author Damian Hughes.

“He [Armstrong] wants to pay for me to go to this big place in Atlanta, I think it is, where you go and stay for a week, they take your phone off you, and Lance was going to fund that for me.”

Olympic medals for sale?

Wiggins’s financial troubles prompted fears he could be forced to sell his Olympics medals, which consist of five golds, a silver and two bronzes that he secured across the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. The original £1 million worth of claims against his image rights firm, Wiggins Rights Ltd, has since been revealed to have nearly doubled.

A progress report by his company’s liquidator, MHA’s Georgina Eason, for the period ending September 14, which was filed to Companies House last month, read: “During the period under review, the directors’ IVA [individual voluntary arrangement] has been terminated, and a bankruptcy petition has been granted. I have submitted the company’s increased claim in the bankruptcy proceedings to the sum of £1,976,157.73.

“I have identified that the company holds the legal title to a small number of trademarks. During the period under review, my agents have identified an interested party and are presently seeking to discuss a proposed sale.”

Those trademarks were said to include “Bradley Wiggins”, “Wiggins”, and “Wiggo”.

The former cyclist was declared bankrupt this summer, four years after entering into an IVA to settle debts that included more than ­£300,000 to HM Revenue and Customs.

Wiggins also appeared on Armstrong’s podcast in October, on which he discussed his financial troubles and how they could have been avoided as he “should have paid more attention” to his finances during his professional career.

The pair’s friendship led to Wiggins defending Armstrong, who was stripped of all seven of his Tour de France titles as part of one of the biggest doping scandals witnessed in sport.

The Briton stressed he does not “condone” Armstrong using performance-enhancing drugs, but did claim that the punishment of losing his results and receiving a lifetime ban did not seem fair when considered against what other cyclists were getting away with.

‘He’s a good man – he’s got a heart under there somewhere’

“He’s a good man,” Wiggins said of Armstrong. “He did what he did, it’s not to condone what he did, we all know that. But, it’s a bit disproportionate to what some people get away with in this world.

“And Lance has got five children. He’s married and he’s got a heart under there somewhere. But he’s also got an ego the size of a house, don’t get me wrong. The ego is why he won seven tours – well he didn’t, or he did, who knows.”

Armstrong eventually came clean in 2013 about the drug ring operated within the US Postal Service cycling team that helped him to seven consecutive Tour victories between 1999 and 2005.

The American was forced to pay $5 million to the US government in a settlement following his revelation in an interview with US personality Oprah Winfrey, and has since been exiled from the sport, despite continuing to broadcast about cycling on his popular podcast.

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