The six Olympic gold medals, because at school I was never great at sport. When I look back on my career I think, how on Earth did that happen?
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Chris Hoy
British track cyclist, 1994–2013
United Kingdom · b. 1976
Sport
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Scottish sprint cyclist who won six Olympic gold medals and one silver across four Games, and eleven world track titles. He retired in 2013 and later competed in motorsport, including the Le Mans 24 Hours.
11 answers
Delivering papers in the freezing cold for my granny. I got paid in Panini football stickers, so it wasn’t all bad.
Those lactate sessions were the worst. I'd be in a lab on a turbo trainer and I'd do four 30-second efforts at 100% effort. It sounds so innocuous but the difference between 99% and 100% is huge. You can finish at 99% and you'll be hurting but if you push a tiny bit more – and that's the bit that makes the difference to your training – your legs just grind to a halt. It's like your engine is seizing up. My coach would unclip my feet and pull my leg over the saddle so I could just slide off onto a mat and curl up in a ball.
I just like to get to the start line knowing there was nothing else I could have done, that there wasn't a single session I didn't give 100 per cent. The physical certainty means you can relax mentally and let the performance come.
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