THIN END OF THE WEDGE

Former Slovenian pro Jani Brajkovi raced at the Tour de France, the Vuelta and the Giro, but in private he was battling a series of harrowing eating disorders. As a bulimic, Brajkovi would routinely make himself sick after eating. He also suffered with orthorexia – an obsession with healthy food – which meant he couldn’t permit himself even a crumb of cake. But Brajkovic is not alone: a recent study in the Journal of Eating Disorders found that a significant 17.1 per cent of cyclists experience disordered eating.

“It might sound unreal, but during my career I was with the best teams - Discovery Channel, RadioShack, Astana, Bahrain and UHC (United Healthcare), and in every team, if there are 30 riders, there are at least five or six riders that have the same problem,” reveals 37-year-old Brajkovi. “After spending a few hours with them, or doing your first race, you figure it out. When you’re suffering yourself, you can smell them. And the really bad thing is that you know they know about you too. And that’s a very uncomfortable situation.”

In his youth, Brajkovi had spells during which he would eat only one type of food, such as bread and Nutella, but his problems exploded during his first years in the high-pressure arena of pro cycling, around