Bradley Wiggins

Bradley Wiggins (born April 28, 1980, Ghent, Belgium) is a Belgian-born British cyclist who was the first rider from the United Kingdom to win the Tour de France (2012).

Wiggins was the son of an Australian track cyclist. He moved to London with his English mother at the age of two following his parents’ divorce. He started racing on the venerable Herne Hill velodrome in south London 10 years later and made his name as a talented but brittle rider on the track, first at the national level and then as part of the fast-developing British track team based in Manchester. In 2000 at the Sydney Olympic Games, Wiggins won his first medal, a bronze, in the four-man team pursuit. He excelled in the 4-km individual pursuit, earning a gold medal in the event at the 2004 Athens Games; he also won a silver in the four-man team pursuit and a bronze in the two-man Madison event. He defended his title in the individual pursuit at the 2008 Games in Beijing, where he also formed part of the four-man pursuit team that set a new world record while winning gold for Great Britain.

Wiggins’s early education in road racing was spent mainly in France with a succession of teams. It was not until his fourth-place finish in the 2009 Tour de France that Wiggins, who was previously regarded as a time-trial specialist, shot to prominence as a potential Tour winner. After switching to Team Sky, he took time to settle into his new role as team leader, finishing 24th in the 2010 Tour de France and crashing out of the 2011 race. In the 2012 road-race cycling season leading up to the Tour, he won the Paris–Nice, the Tour de Romandie, and the Critérium du Dauphiné, three of the biggest races on the professional calendar. A favourite entering the Tour de France, Wiggins took over the leader’s yellow jersey on stage seven and confirmed his historic win on the penultimate stage of the 23-day race after nearly 3,500 km (about 2,175 miles). His victory was widely regarded as evidence that the world’s toughest bicycle race could be won without the use of drugs, and Wiggins was applauded as a critic of doping in cycling; in a newspaper editorial published during 2012 Tour, Wiggins passionately explained why he refused to use performance-enhancing drugs.

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Britannica Quiz

The Olympics Quiz

Shortly after the Tour, Wiggins competed at the 2012 Olympics in London. There he won a gold medal in the time-trial event, becoming the first Tour de France champion to win Olympic gold on the track; he also became the only person to win the Tour and capture a gold medal in the same year. In 2013 he won the Tour of Britain. The following year he won a time-trial gold medal at the road world championships. At the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games, Wiggins was part of a British squad that won gold in men’s team pursuit, bringing his lifetime Olympic medal total to eight, the most for any Briton. He retired from cycling in December 2016. That year, following a hack into the World Anti-Doping Agency’s database, therapeutic use exemptions that were granted to Wiggins and Team Sky in 2011–13 for the otherwise banned corticosteroid triamcinolone were made public. In 2018 a House of Commons committee investigating doping in sports accused Wiggins and Team Sky of “crossing an ethical line.” The committee concluded that they had used the drug to improve performance and not for the intended purpose of medical treatment. Wiggins and Team Sky denied any wrongdoing.

Wiggins was granted a knighthood in the 2013 New Year Honours list.