Skip to main content

Olympic Cyclist Bradley Wiggins Listens To Paul Weller's Music!


Beijing Olympics: Profile of Olympic cycling gold winner Bradley Wiggins


Bradley Wiggins is in many respects the rock star of British cycling, bursting into the national consciousness in Athens where he won gold, silver and bronze medals.

By Peter Foster in Beijing
Last Updated: 3:11PM BST 18 Aug 2008

The 28-year-old Londoner is known for his love of punk-rock and specifically Paul Weller which he plays at full volume on his ipod before races, along with tracks from the Jam and the Who according to his wife, Cath.

"He loves everything about the mods," she said, "he even has a classic mod scooter and the hairdo to match. He was forced to shave it off before the games because it was too hot for training. He was devastated!"

The son of a professional cyclist, Gary Wiggins, Brad was born in Ghent, Belgian but grew up in London quickly following in his estranged father's tracks, racing in the Herne Hill Velodrome in south London from the age of 12.

Wiggins says that he is now a much more mature figure now than the ride who went wild with excitement after winning his first gold in Athens in the individual pursuit.

He is still known in the team as a 'big event' rider, a man who always rises to the occasion, but in Beijing he has been determined not to have his head turned by all the attention that comes with winning gold.

"I don't do emotion any more," he said after defending his title in Beijing, "

"Athens sort of destroyed me. I was young and winning that first gold took it out of me and I underperformed in the team pursuit."

Both Wiggins and his wife say that above all it is fatherhood that has steadied him, with the birth since Athens of his son, Ben, 3 and daughter, Isabelle, now 18 months.

"It puts everything into perspective," said Mrs Wiggins, 27, "the children don't care if daddy comes first or last, they just want him to take them swimming or to the local park."

Wiggins agrees. "Up to the moment my children were born, all I had was cycling," he said in an interview before Beijing, "It was the be-all and end-all of life. If I was injured or didn't win an Olympic gold, what was I going to do? The beauty of children is they bring you back to earth."

From The Telegraph

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

John Weller Obituary From The Independent...

For thirty years, John Weller managed the career of his son Paul, through the salad days and success of The Jam in the Seventies and early Eighties, the ups and downs of The Style Council and Paul’s re-emergence as a solo artist in the Nineties. Theirs was a unique father-son relationship in the music industry, built on John’s unwavering belief in Paul’s talent and shared values like hard work and pragmatism.

John could be blunt, and once refused to have lunch in a record company’s executive dining room, remarking to the managing director: “I didn’t come here to eat, I came to do business.” But his bark was worse than his bite.

John’s success was all the more remarkable since he started in his forties after years working in factories, on building sites and driving a taxi. When The Jam signed to Polydor in February 1977, for a £6,000 advance and a six per cent royalty rate, John admitted he didn’t have a bank account and asked for cash instead of a cheque. A&R man Chris Parry duly we…
2 comments
Read more

Paul Weller's Son, Natt Gives A Candid Taxi Interview

Where else to meet the musician son of the agelessly groovy Modfather but at London’s trendy Met Bar? And there’s more than a hint of moody Mod style about the Japanese parka that Paul Weller’s eldest child Natt has slung over his Vivienne Westwood top.

Yet there all similarity ends, for singer-guitarist Natt has inherited the exotic beauty of his mother – former Wham! and Style Council backing singer Dee C Lee – rather than the famously angular features of his father.

‘Everybody always goes, “Luckily he took after his mum…”’ laughs Natt, whose mother is from France and St Lucia and whose great-great grandma was Japanese. Hence Natt’s fascination for Japan, where he moved in 2006 for a year to learn the language.

To pay for his studies, he modelled and deejayed, ‘I felt like an outsized monster,’ confides Natt, 21, a 6ft 1in beanpole. He returned a fan of Japan’s popular culture – from manga cartoons to punk-goth music – and with a different spelling to his name, which now features two ‘…
Post a Comment
Read more

Steve White On The Passing of John Weller...

It wasn't unexpected to get the news that John Weller had passed away , it was a beautiful sunny morning in fact , but the news still stung even though the anticipation existed .

I finished work today , a day peppered by texts and calls , I missed the call that mattered but made ammends and spoke to the one person I needed to speak to , I raised a glass at dinner and reminisced with my beautiful partner of days of travel and nights of glory that followed , and after a little to much wine the drowsiness lifted and the harsh reality that someone very special had passed hit me , I wanted to say that , with my emotions bubbling very much to the surface , I wanted to remember those decades and shows and nights that we all spent together , indestructible , laughing and making the music of our dreams , wide eyed vagabonds not quite believing .

I remember the day on arriving back from Sydney, John telling me it was all over and he had enough of "this lark" , that was 24 odd years …
2 comments
Read more