Chris Hoy

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Chris Hoy : biography

23 March 1976 –

2008 Olympics

Hoy became the first British Olympian for 100 years to claim three golds at one games at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. This came when he won the men’s keirin, the men’s team sprint and also the men’s individual sprint.

The three man team sprint squad included Hoy, Jason Kenny and Jamie Staff. Kenny replaced Ross Edgar just before the games. They defeated the French by a clear margin, despite the French team’s previous dominance of the event.

The keirin was Hoy’s second gold medal of the 2008 games, when he came home clear winner ahead of team mate Edgar.

Hoy reached the final round of the individual sprint without a glitch, where his opponent turned out to be his young team mate, Jason Kenny. Kenny was a junior world champion who had achieved a number of high placings. Hoy used his greater experience to defeat Kenny, completing his hat trick of Olympic titles.

2008/09 season

Hoy did not race at the first major event of the 2009/10 season, the World Cup Classics Event in Manchester on 4 October – 2 November. He instead made an appearance to sign autographs and commentate with the BBC. He made his return to racing in the UK at the Revolution 22 event in Manchester in December. He received a standing ovation from the Manchester faithful at the start of the event when he was introduced to the crowd. At this event Hoy won both the Sprint and Keirin competitions, defeating likes of Jason Kenny, Jamie Staff, Ross Edgar, Matthew Crampton and Teun Mulder along the way. Hoy competed in the World Cup Classics series’ final event in Copenhagen, Denmark in February, helping his team to a gold medal in the team sprint event. However, he crashed out during the men’s Keirin final and was forced to miss the final day of competition, including the men’s sprint. Although at first, his injury seemed minor, he returned to Manchester where, following a scan, he was diagnosed with a serious de-gloving injury which finished his season and kept him off his bike for almost 3 months. He was unable to compete as planned at the Revolution 24 event in Manchester the following weekend, he did however make an appearance at the event. He has had to pull out of the World Championships in Poland at the end of March, where he would have attempted to win 2 World titles, because of the hip injury.

2009/10 season

Hoy started the 09/10 track season at the National Cycling Centre, Manchester, at the British National Championships where he took only his second (and third) ever individual national titles. He took gold medals in the Keirin, Sprint and was part of the Team Sprint Team representing team SKY along with Jamie Staff and Jason Kenny. Two weeks later, he raced in round one of the UCI World Cup at the same venue and took gold in the Mens Keirin. He then went into day 2 of the competition and took gold in the sprint event, beating fellow Brit Matthew Crampton in the final 2–0. A third World Cup gold came in the Team Sprint on the Sunday. Having ridden and won 12 events over the weekend, he withdrew from the International Japanese Keirin which was consequently won by team mate Matt Crampton. At the 2010 UCI World Championships, Hoy was beaten in the quarter final of the men’s sprint event by his German opponent, Robert Förstemann, who won after making an attack from the start line. He was part of the GB men’s team sprint that took the bronze. In the Keirin event, Hoy won the gold medal, despite crashing in the heats, to take his tenth world title.

2010/11 season

Hoy lost in the first round of the men’s sprint at the European Championships to Ireland’s Felix English. At the Manchester World Cup event in February 2011, Hoy lost in the semi-finals to Jason Kenny. Hoy took the match sprint title at the British National Championships in October 2011.

2011/12 track season

At the 2012 World Cup event held in the new London Velodrome, Hoy won three medals. He won gold in the keirin and bronze in the team sprint, before winning gold in the Men’s Sprint, losing just one race in four rounds.