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Sir Bradley Wiggins and Sir Dave Brailsford interview: How this odd couple changed the face of British cycling
Ahead of Paris-Roubaix this weekend, Tom Cary chats with Sir Bradley Wiggins and Sir Dave Brailsford to discuss how these two unlikely lads have transformed British cycling
Tom Cary: Take me back to the day you two first met. Can you remember it?
Bradley Wiggins: I can. You were hanging around with that dodgy f****r we used to rent an apartment off in the late 90s!
Dave Brailsford: Fred Salmon...
BW: Yeah Fred. A mountain biker. He was quite a big name on the scene at the time. Anyway, I remember one day you turned up in your Merc coupé. We went to Fred's house and you were living with him. So I only knew you as Fred's mate to begin with. He had a bike shop in Whaley Bridge south of Manchester. And myself and Charly Wegelius and another rider rented this apartment off of him. In some ways that was the beginning of the Academy.
It all began in Manchester for Wiggins
TC: When are we talking here?
BW: This would have been late 1998. I was junior world champion then. It was right at the start of Lottery funding. When I won the junior worlds in August 1998 I went back to Manchester, to [former British Cycling boss] Peter Keen's office, and he told me about this plan they had to fund riders and we would ride their bikes, their kit. And then I think it must have been a year later in Manchester, we must have been training for the track worlds in Berlin, and I bumped into you in the corridor, and you said you were working there now...
TC: What were your first impressions of each other?
BW: I don't know really. I just remember this goatee. You had this goatee at the time, like David Brent [laughing]. If I'm totally honest I thought you were a bit shady because you had a Merc coupé. A bit of a gangster. One of Fred's mates with sort of self-done tattoos.
Brailsford (right) in his younger days
TC: What were the tattoos about?
DB: I had a load as a kid on my arm and then I had them all removed. I started to write BRAILSFORD. So it was like B-R-A across my arm. It was a nightmare because I was like 13 at the time, with your mates, with Indian Ink and that. And then you're stuck with them. I could never wear short-sleeve shirts.
BW: After that you didn't have much contact with the performance side of things for a while. I think the first time I really remember seeing you properly was in 2002 when I turned up in 'the suit' for a performance review. I was unhappy after flopping at the Commonwealths and the Worlds. And we were sat there and they said 'what do you want to do?' And I said I wanted to be Olympic champion in two years’ time. And I remember saying something like 'I might go and ride for Belgium because I'm not going to do it here!'
TC: Were you serious? [Wiggins was born in Belgium]
Wiggins has always been prone to mood swings
BW: Nah. That was just a flippant comment that I hadn't thought through properly!
DB: You weren't happy though, were you? You were talented, you were growing up, and then like all young guys you go through that early 20s transition... sometimes you're angry, sometimes you think you're a bit better than you are. You just don't know how to deal with it.
BW: I had gone into the pro ranks and I had made it. And not many [Brits] were making it as pros then. And I remember getting carried away a bit by the lifestyle. Because there was quite a big drinking culture in cycling then. Francaise des Jeux and them Aussies and Dave Millar and all that. And I remember sort of thinking I had made it. I turned up at the Worlds in Copenhagen that year and I was wearing the FDJ tracksuit around. It was almost like I was too good for the British team. And I flopped completely. That was a big wake-up call for me. But by the end of 2002 I had met my wife and we moved in together. I decided to leave France, my basement flat in Nantes, and come back to the UK. I got a place in Didsbury. We settled down. And I got a bit of stability then.
TC: So how did your relationship develop?
BW: I remember we went to Herne Hill [both start laughing] for a dinner there and we all got absolutely wasted - because we did back then. [Stuart] O'Grady was there, Millar... And it was just really open. And Dave always used to be a bit wilder in those days as a performance director. But it was like a big turning point because no one from British Cycling had ever been like that. Everyone feared Peter Keen, he couldn't communicate with the riders. Dave almost acted like a big brother to everyone. And I remember you grabbing me in a headlock and sort of saying 'You’re so wary. You need to trust me more! I want you to write down now on this card 'The day I become Olympic champion'. And I gave you this card – it was a business card of Dave's – and I wrote on the back: ‘The day I become Olympic champion…'. And I put Athens. And then it happened one year later. And when it did I remember giving you a jersey and writing 'That day came' or something.
DB: I've got it at home. It's on my wall. I don't remember what you wrote exactly but it's something along the lines of 'I'll never forget what you said in Herne Hill'.
BW: [laughing] What about the Holiday Inn incident?
DB: Oh God. We had a British Cycling thing there, at the foot of Celtic Manor. There is a sort of pond in the foyer. I can't remember exactly when it was, but during those wilder years. So we'd all had a few beers. Rob Hayles was there. They had got my phone. They were absolute devils for nicking my phone and sending messages to random people saying I had a thing for them. Anyway, they got my phone, and my keys, and put them in the pond. And they said 'Look Dave, I think your keys are in there'. So I leant over to pick them up, in a proper suit and everything, and they pushed me in. They were howling with laughter... I came down in the morning and the whole area had been taped off. The best one, though, was when Brad and Stevie Cummings were juniors. They were a right handful. Doug Dailey [former British Cycling coach] was running a training camp and the hotel was halfway down the hill. And Doug had got up in the morning and gone for a ride and Brad and Steve had let the brakes go, and they were both sitting down waiting for Doug to come past and sure enough he came roaring past with both his feet down on the ground going 'Woooahhh!'
Wiggins was "a right handful" in his younger days
TC: Brad, you have spoken in the past about going off the rails a bit after Athens?
BW: Yeah, just getting lost again. I became a father that year as well. I don't think I fully appreciated at the time how big an impact that was on me.
TC: Was that a worry for you, Dave, watching Brad 'getting lost' as he calls it?
DB: Yeah sometimes. When you would go, you would really go, wouldn't you? Like full-on, proper go. What I'd like to think is that whenever you came back to British Cycling you were always welcome.
BW: Yeah, it was familiar. And it was always for a reason. A World Championships or an Olympic Games. It wasn't a week here or a week there.
Wiggins enjoyed success in Beijing
TC: Eventually, after further success in Beijing, you wound up at Garmin-Slipstream in 2009. And you had a great time there. But once Dave set up Team Sky you were always going to move?
BW: I went from strength to strength at Garmin and loved it there. I ended up finishing third in the Tour that year [after Lance Armstrong’s result was voided]. After the first mountain stage, when I finished in the first group with Lance and everyone, that is when Shane [Sutton] got on the phone and went 'Right...' [heavy Aussie twang] And it was after that that Dave and I met in the supermarket in Limoges.
TC: It was controversial, buying a rider out of his contract. But you had to have him, Dave?
DB: Well it just made sense. We had been talking about a British team but it was a question of timing.
BW: They could have signed Steven Gerrard for what they ended up paying for me [laughing]. They could have signed Gareth Bale for what Garmin wanted to start with. It had never happened before in cycling, had it? In football it happens all the time.
Team Sky spent a fortune to sign Wiggins
TC: You had a tricky first year at Sky but gradually got going… and then came 2012. You have said since that you only enjoyed two days of that Tour?
BW: It was just the weight of expectation. The day-in-day-out of it wasn't enjoyable. You were just counting down to Paris, ticking them off, ticking them off. Trying to stay upright.
TC: And the rivalry with Chris Froome was starting to build.
BW: That obviously didn't help. That added extra pressure, extra tension. Questions each day from the media.
TC: You came back to England and the Olympics were on and it was Wiggo-mania everywhere with cut-out-and-keep sideburns in the newspapers?
After Olympic success in London, everyone wanted a piece of Wiggo-mania
DB: The biggest moment for me in this entire thing was when you got asked to go ring that bell [at the opening ceremony to London 2012]. For Bradley, who I watched grow up, to be asked to do that, the fact that it was cycling, the fact that it was a yellow jersey. Billions of people were watching around the world. I remember I was stood behind you when you walked out and the stadium just lit up. It was difficult to comprehend.
BW: Yeah, that was pretty surreal. I remember just taking it in my stride, not really letting it sink in. We were in the car, police escort, and within 30 minutes we were back in central London in a meeting about the road race the next day. I just forgot about it. I had to shave my legs.
TC: You won the time trial gold but the worm was already turning. You were getting unhappy again.
BW: Normally you get back down to it by Oct/Nov. But three months on I was here, there, everywhere. I didn't know if I was coming or going. I remember ringing Dave four weeks before SPOTY and saying 'Right, I'm going to pull out of this Sports Personality of the Year. I don't want to keep amplifying this fame any more'. [laughing]. And he said 'I don't think that's a wise thing to do.' I had no stability in my life. It was just crazy.
Wiggins won SPOTY for his achievements
DB: Your life changed so dramatically. And I think, you know, when you're young, when you're a Wayne Rooney or those kinds of guys, they get used to it very quickly. When you're 32, as you were, you're grown up. You have got used to living life a certain way and all of a sudden...
TC: And obviously the Lance thing exploded that autumn with the USADA report and then the Oprah Winfrey interview...
BW: Yeah after SPOTY and the knighthood, we went into January, and it was like... first training camp, Lance does the Oprah interview. The next couple of months were just 'Lance Armstrong'. As the winner of the Tour de France that was hard. I struggled with that. My natural reaction to that was really defensive and guarded. And that affected my riding. Obviously I crashed out of the Giro. I was so relieved when it was like 'right, we're not doing the Tour now'. It was the moment when 2012 finally stopped.
TC: You had the Froome situation simmering in 2013 as well.
BW: Of course. Because it was like 'if you win the Giro, who is going to lead the Tour?' So that was tough. I just fell out of love with cycling at that time. I forgot what I loved about it, anyway. Around that period my kids changed school as well.
Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah shook the cycling world
TC: They were being bullied?
BW: Yeah, it wasn't so much bullying as people sort of commenting because of the Armstrong thing at the time. I didn't feel proud to be the winner of the Tour. If you're an Olympic champion in this country it is something you can be proud of but I didn't feel proud. I wasn't strong enough, at that time, to stand up and say 'look at me as an example'. I sort of shied away from it.
TC: So then last year, you stated very publicly that you wanted to be part of the Tour team but Dave didn’t pick you. That must have put a strain on your relationship? Did you think of leaving Team Sky?
BW: Obviously people were going to start talking to me, but I didn't really seriously consider going anywhere else.
DB: There was no way you were going to go. It's like having a relationship, isn't it? Sometimes you have these brilliant moments. At other times there is a bit of strain. But I like to think that ultimately you go through it together don't you? He kept sending me texts during the Tour, though. 'Plan C…'. [laughing].
Wiggins's rivalry with Chris Froome caused tension
BW: Yeah, because it was like 'Plan B was Richie [Porte]...' And someone had mocked up a photo of Dave holding an A-Z kid's book and it was like ‘We've got 25 more letters to go before we get to W!'
TC: You came back to take world time trial gold in Ponferrada last September, beating a heavily fancied Tony Martin.
DB: I would say from a performance point of view that was probably Bradley’s best; in terms of the approach, the pacing, it was as if you had put all your experience, all your physical ability and everything you had learnt along the way, and you put it into one performance.
BW: It was like Ali v Foreman.
DB: It was jaw-droppingly perfect. You came and knocked on my door before you left Ponferrada, do you remember? And you threw me your jersey.
Wiggins's victory in Ponferrada was one of his greatest
BW: I always give Dave a jersey after every major win.
DB: And this one said 'through thick and thin'. That was nice.
TC: So Paris-Roubaix on Sunday. You honestly think a win would trump the Tour?
BW: I think three years on it would feel better if I could do it just because of where I've been these last three years. I mean, the Tour will always be huge. But I think for where I am now, and just the contrast between the Tour and Paris-Roubaix, the heritage of the race and the fact that I fell in love with these races as a kid, with Johan Museeuw and them lot. It would be nice to go out with a win, like I did wearing the rainbow stripes [in the time trial] at De Panne last week. I don't want to get lost over the next few years. I don't want to go on as a punch drunk former Tour winner.