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ONE TRACK MIND
Cycling Plus UK
|May 2025
FIVE MOMENTS THAT SHAPED SIR CHRIS HOY'S STELLAR CAREER IN THE VELODROME
Sir Chris Hoy's glittering track cycling career ended with six Olympic gold medals and 11 world titles – but it all started with the film E. T. and Hoy's first bike, refurbished by his dad to look like a BMX.
That bike didn't last long – "Inevitably, I snapped it," the Scotsman says – but it started a journey in cycling that took him to the BMX World Championships as a teen, before dalliances with first mountain biking and then road cycling, and on to his calling on the track.
Hoy's maiden Olympic title came in 2004, when he stood atop the podium in Athens, at a time when cycling barely registered on the British sporting consciousness. It marked a turning point in his career – with the race he'd won, the kilo (a 1km time trial) subsequently dropped ahead of the next Games in Beijing, he faced a choice between retiring on a high or retraining as a sprinter. The rest, of course, is history. Hoy won three sprint titles in Beijing – and two more at his home Games in London in 2012.
Since retiring, he's launched a bike brand, raced Le Mans and been a regular face on British TV through coverage of track events at the World Championships and Olympic Games. He's also one of the investors behind Skarper, the e-bike conversion kit.
Last year, Hoy made public that he'd been diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer and, in October, disclosed that the disease was terminal. He's also written a book, All That Matters, since his cancer diagnosis.
Joining the BikeRadar Podcast for an exclusive interview, Hoy reflected on four decades as a cyclist. Here are the five moments that shaped his career, according to the man himself...
1 FIRST BIKEI first got into cycling by watching the film
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