{"id":271481,"date":"2025-11-09T05:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T05:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/271481\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T05:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T05:49:07","slug":"lance-armstrong-pays-for-sir-bradley-wiggins-stay-at-top-u-s-trauma-clinic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/271481\/","title":{"rendered":"Lance Armstrong pays for Sir Bradley Wiggins\u2019 stay at top U.S. trauma clinic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Bradley Wiggins says he has checked into one of America\u2019s leading trauma rehabilitation clinics, with none other than Lance Armstrong picking up the bill.<\/p>\n

The 2012 Tour de France champion told the Daily Mail<\/a> (I know, sorry) he will receive treatment at a facility in Utah, arranged and paid for by the former U.S. cyclist. \u201cI\u2019m off to America on Friday,\u201d Wiggins said during a recent talk. \u201cHe\u2019s paid for me to go and see a top trauma counselling clinic in Utah, so I\u2019m looking forward to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wiggins said Armstrong has also \u201coffered me a role back in cycling, a platform which doesn\u2019t involve me getting on a bike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lance Armstrong wants to race Jake Paul<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The two men, whose careers overlapped before Armstrong\u2019s 2011 retirement, have remained close. \u201cLance has been a source of inspiration to me and a constant source of help,\u201d Wiggins said. \u201cHe is one of the main factors why I\u2019m in this position I am today, mentally and physically, so I\u2019m indebted to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wiggins has spoken openly about his struggles with addiction, mental health and financial collapse since retiring. In a separate interview, he described becoming \u201ca functioning addict\u201d and admitted to using cocaine \u201coff my Olympic gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI raged as I smashed up my 2012 trophy for Sports Personality of the Year and my knighthood,\u201d he told the Daily Mail. \u201cThis isn\u2019t success. I did that in front of my kids. No wonder there were times when they talked about trying to put me in rehab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, with Armstrong\u2019s backing, Wiggins says he\u2019s focusing on recovery and processing the traumas that derailed his post-cycling life. It\u2019s not the first time the disgraced American cyclist has helped a former pro who was battling addiction. Armstrong, who confessed to doping after winning a record seven Tours, also helped Jan Ullrich, an addict and alcoholic, with his recovery. In fact, the American himself has said that he has given up alcohol after having problems with it.<\/p>\n

The news of Wiggins\u2019 rehab stay follows a series of startling revelations about his post-retirement struggles. A few weeks ago, he spoke candidly to The Telegraph about his descent into cocaine addiction, admitting he once snorted the drug off one of his Olympic gold medals.<\/p>\n

The five-time Olympic champion and 2012 Tour de France winner said he became a \u201cfunctioning addict\u201d after retiring in 2016. \u201cI did shitloads of cocaine,\u201d Wiggins said<\/a>, adding that he still isn\u2019t sure how he survived it all. The excerpt comes from his upcoming book, The Chain.<\/p>\n

He recounted an especially dark period when he holed up in a hotel for two weeks, consuming up to 120 grams of cocaine \u2014 enough to kill him several times over. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t like to think about it,\u201d he said when asked how he survived.<\/p>\n

Wiggins\u2019 children, Isabella and Ben, had urged him to seek help, alarmed by his behaviour. He admitted he often lost control in front of them, once smashing his 2012 Sports Personality of the Year trophy and his knighthood. \u201cThis isn\u2019t success,\u201d he said. His son Ben has since followed in his footsteps, becoming a professional cyclist and a world champion on the track.<\/p>\n

There are\u2026well, strong opinions about Armstrong on the Internet \u2014 sure, he doped and cheated, as did many, but he was sometimes not the nicest during his tenure as the patron of the peloton. Whether this is penance or simply empathy for fellow pro riders who suffered from addiction and depression remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Bradley Wiggins says he has checked into one of America\u2019s leading trauma rehabilitation clinics, with none other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[5245,49,48,635,37490,71857,124496,82],"class_list":["post-271481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-addiction","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-doping","tag-lance-armstrong","tag-sir-bradley-wiggins","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}