THE aftermath of a major championship is traditionally an awkward time for athletes to deal with. They have spent so long preparing for one event: once it's gone, a feeling of pointlessness can set in.
Bradley Wiggins is a case in point, albeit
an extreme one. In his new autobiography In Pursuit of Glory (Orion, £18.99), the Olympic cyclist reveals that after the Athens Games of 2004 he went on a nine-month bender.
He had worked hard for years, he had come home with a gold medal, but his family were still in financial trouble and there was little external recognition of his achievement. For example, neither Wiggins nor his team-mate and fellow-gold-medallist, Chris Hoy, got so much as a look-in at the traditional BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards that December.
It says a lot for Wiggins' strength of character that he was able to climb out of that slump and set off down the road that ended with him winning two gold medals in Beijing. But the experience of him, Hoy and Britain's other cycling medallists since the Games ended in August also says a lot about how our perception of cycling has changed.
They are national heroes now, interest in their sport has soared, and any chance of anonymity has gone. If Wiggins or any of his colleagues ever felt like popping down the pub for a few jars, they would only get there after shaking hands with a few hundred people, opening a village fair and attending a photo call.
They may not have competed since August, but far from there having been the traditional let-up in demands on their time, they have received more attention, not less, since returning from China. Hoy, for instance, was in Glasgow yesterday morning for a sponsorship announcement, then he was off to Edinburgh for a civic reception – the fourth he has been given, he reckons, by his native city.
Another reception in Manchester awaits today, before an appointment in London on Thursday. Almost two months on from Beijing, Scotland's greatest-ever Olympian has yet to have a proper break.
"I haven't had a single day off," Hoy said yesterday. "Even getting a couple of hours to myself is pretty unusual.
"I've been on the track two or three times, in the gym just whenever I can fit it in. And on the road as well – the road and the gym are things you can do pretty much anywhere you are, so it's not too bad, but track training I've done very little. The training won't start until the end of November when I get back from holiday."
The Scot added that he had had only a vague idea of the different kind of post-Olympic experience Wiggins had gone through over the winter of 2004-05. "It was pretty much news to me, I think," he said.
"Not a massive surprise. I was just sorry to hear he had a hard time, and I think he's got through it now.
"He's grown up a lot and matured a fair bit since then. The fact he's talking about it and is quite open about it – I don't think it's a big issue for him now."
The fact Wiggins is in an altogether more light-hearted frame of mind this time round is proven by his attempts to keep the knighthood-for-Hoy campaign going. "I think Bradley has been stirring things up a bit for a laugh," Hoy added.
"It's all media speculation. Any accolades or honours you get you gratefully receive, obviously, but you certainly don't expect them. And you wait until you're asked."
Being a modest, unpretentious character, Hoy has continued to be almost baffled by the amount of positive attention he has received. "I don't think you ever get used to it. It's a bizarre feeling when people come up to you and say hello.
"It's really nice, really nice. Everyone has been so positive and just genuine about it all. They come up and say they watched it on telly and really got into it, or 'I'd never watched cycling in my life before but I got into it during the Olympics'. Every person that has come up has been really, really good."
Hoy was speaking at the Glasgow Science Centre to mark the renewal of the sponsorship deal between Scottish Cycling and – appropriately enough – Scottish Power Renewables. While more than happy to take part in such events, he has not lost sight of the fact that his real job will have to resume soon.
"I'm always keen to promote my sport and try and increase participation in it, so anything you can do to do that is great. But at the same time, I've not retired from cycling yet.
"I'm still competing, so you have to put that first. If your performances drop off, then it affects everything. So that's my main focus, my racing.
"There's no time to have any chance to reflect at the moment, it's just so busy. Then I'll be straight into next season.
"I'm just looking forward to having a bit of normality again. I'm enjoying all this, it's great, but at the same time . . .
"December is when I'll be 100 per cent back. Until then, I'm committing to do as much as I can of this sort of thing. Then I'll draw a line under that and get back into my training.
"At the moment, I'm just trying to get through all the exciting things I've got to do. Then it's back to some kind of routine and normality."
Or so he hopes. Because, after his triple gold-medal triumph in Beijing, it is a fair bet that Hoy will never know complete normality again.
The full article contains 984 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
