When Sir Chris Hoy revealed his cancer diagnosis earlier this year, most people, I think, believed he’d get through it.
Surely, a man who’s one of the greatest athletes Great Britain has ever produced, and who’s achieved quite incredible things in the sporting arena, would be able to overcome even this?
But, we found out this weekend, no, he won’t.
The 48-year-old has, his doctors have told him, between two and four years to live.
It’s always shocking to find out someone’s likely to die prematurely, even more so when it’s someone who we followed as he became one of the very best track cyclists in the world. It’s profoundly sad to think Hoy could die so soon, particularly given his young family.
The outpouring of love and support from both the sporting community and further afield following Hoy’s revelation about his terminal cancer has been heartwarming, but unsurprising.
Hoy is, without question, one of the most liked, and likable, men in sport.
For someone who’s achieved such success – six Olympic golds, and 11 world titles – there’s never been a hint of arrogance about him, despite the fact more than a little arrogance would be entirely justified.
Such humility is rare thing in elite sport; so often, athletes who become one of the best their sport has ever seen develop an unattractive cockiness but there’s never been any of that from Hoy. He’s always possessed, and still does, an unerring modesty.
Hoy has proven, unequivocally, that you can be a hugely successful athlete but still a nice guy.
My earliest encounter with him was as a teenager, at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
Hoy had won his first Olympic medal two years before – a silver at the 2000 Sydney Olympics - and so was starting to make something of a name for himself. Four years later, at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, he was one of the stars of the Scottish team, but you’d never have known it from the way he conducted himself – he was, in his eyes, just another member of Team Scotland.
And at the London 2012 Olympics, where the Edinburgh native won two gold medals to become GB’s most successful-ever Olympian, Hoy became a superstar. But seeing him walk around the Athletes’ Village, he was the least flashy superstar in there, and behaved in exactly the way he had ten years earlier.
- "I still feel we’re lucky": Sir Chris Hoy remains positive after cancer diagnosis
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Outpouring of support for Sir Chris Hoy after cancer diagnosis
Hoy may not have seen himself as better than the athletes he shared a team with, but his teammates knew he was special.
He commanded a level of respect from his fellow athletes that’s reserved for only truly great sportspeople.
I remember being in the gym one time when Hoy began to leg press. Every athlete, to a person, stopped to watch him. The weights he could lift seemed super-human. The size of his gigantic, Lycra-clad thighs remain etched in the mind of anyone who saw them in person.
Yet Hoy carries his superstar status lightly.
He seems to care little about his records being broken, or whether he’s considered truly the best-ever.
When talking about Scotland’s greatest-ever cyclist, Hoy is most people’s pick but he’ll always insert the names of Graeme Obree and Robert Millar into the conversation.
And when Jason Kenny won his seventh Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020 to surpass Hoy’s record of six Olympic titles, the Scot showed no hint of bitterness or jealousy, only delight for his friend and joy at his former teammate’s success.
That Hoy is so generous with his praise for the current crop of British cyclists – he’s been a pundit on BBC television over the past week at the World Track Cycling Championships – is a testament to his love for the sport.
It will never be forgotten that Hoy was one of the individuals who kick-started this British Cycling revolution that we’ve seen develop over the past two decades.
The medal-winning exploits that we’ve now come to expect from GB’s track cyclists is a relatively new phenomena and Hoy was one of the individuals who began driving the sport in this country to these heights.
I’d never want to compare being an elite athlete to suffering from cancer but there are, it seems, skills and techniques from his sporting career that he’s been using over the past year, and will continue to use over the coming years, to deal with what he’s facing.
His attitude to his terminal cancer diagnosis is remarkable, saying he still “feels lucky”, despite the cards he’s been dealt.
“Control the controllables” is an oft-used phrase by sportspeople and it’s a mantra that Hoy is applying to the next phase of his life. He’s been using the “helicopter technique”, that he used as an athlete to rise above stressful situations.
It helped him win bike races, and it is, he says, helping him deal with his cancer.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that Hoy’s approach and attitude to being given just a few years to live is so unique – anyone who watched him ride a bike has already witnessed quite what a unique individual he is. That, I’m certain, will continue over the coming years.
