Sir Chris Hoy has spoken about the ‘unimaginable year’ he’s had after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
In February, the six-time Olympic cycling champion posted on Instagram to say that he’d been hoping to keep the matter private for the sake of his family, but ‘our hand has been forced’ and said he’d been diagnosed with cancer in 2023.
He explained that the diagnosis had come as a shock as he hadn’t been suffering from symptoms, and then in October he provided an update where he said that his cancer was terminal and he had ‘two to four years‘ left to live.
Sir Chris explained that he’d first been diagnosed with prostate cancer and that this had now spread to his bones, meaning it was incurable.
His cancer had first been detected after a scan for shoulder pain revealed a tumour and further scans showed growths elsewhere on his body.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Sir Chris has spoken about the ‘unimaginable year’ he’s been through to let people know he wasn’t in any pain and ‘couldn’t have responded better to the treatment that’s available’.
He said he would be working on a charity event next year called the ‘Tour de 4’ which gave him a ‘purpose’.
“It’s first of all spreading awareness about it, trying to get men to go and get checked because it’s a very simple thing to deal with if you catch it early enough,” Sir Chris explained.
“And also raise, hopefully, a huge amount of money to try and fund ongoing research.
“I realise how far I’ve come now, there’s no way I could have sat here talking to you six months ago, I’d have been a gibbering wreck.
“The overall hope was that it would help people, not just people going through a cancer diagnosis, but you can get through the most extreme situations and pop out the other end and still have hope, still be able to live your life.”
Sir Chris went on to say that ‘running away from these fears that’s the worst thing you can do’ and said it was better to confront them, even if it meant speaking aloud your fears.
He said he believed that getting checked up should be an annual check that was ‘not a big deal’, and encouraged people to look up their risk of getting prostate cancer.
Hoy explained that his cancer diagnosis had been ‘utterly terrifying’ as there were ‘a million things that are flashing round your head’, but explained that he built a support network of family, friends and medical experts around him.
He added that he was now focused on ‘living for the day’ and remembering to ‘appreciate the here and now’.
“I am so lucky to be in the situation I’m in, people might think that sounds strange to say ‘I’m lucky’, I truly believe I am lucky because in the circumstances that I’m in that I can’t change I’m in the best possible scenario,” Sir Chris said.
“I have great people around, I have an amazing family, I have a wonderful wife, I’m relatively young and fit and healthy aside from the cancer diagnosis. I’m exercising every day and trying to be disciplined with my diet and just stack the odds in my favour.”
