Five-time Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins has announced his retirement from cycling aged 36.
Wiggins became Britain’s first Tour de France winner in 2012 and bows out with eight Olympic medals, including five golds, and seven world titles, across track and road cycling, to his name.
The 36-year-old said in a statement: “I have been lucky enough to live a dream and fulfil my childhood aspiration of making a living and a career out of the sport I fell in love with at the age of 12. I’ve met my idols and ridden with and alongside the best for 20 years. I have worked with the world’s best coaches and managers who I will always be grateful to for their support.
“What will stick with me forever is the support and love from the public though thick and thin, all as a result of riding a pushbike for a living. 2012 blew my mind and was a gas. Cycling has given me everything and I couldn’t have done it without the support of my wonderful wife Cath and our amazing kids.
“2016 is the end of the road for this chapter, onwards and upwards, “feet on the ground, head in the clouds” kids from Kilburn don’t win Olympic Golds and Tour de Frances’! They do now.”
Earlier this year his medical records were made public after a cyber attack. These showed that he had been granted multiple TUEs exemptions as an asthma sufferer, prompting questions about Wiggins’s openness on the subject.
British media reported that a mystery package had been delivered to Wiggins, which his boss at Sky Dave Brailsford later told Parliament had contained a decongestant.
Wiggins consistently denied any wrongdoing but the episode provided a sour postscript to an astonishing career in which the boy from Kilburn took the high road and never looked back.
