Chris Hoy interview: Happy Hoy just itching to climb back into the saddle

CHRIS Hoy has a happy habit of being able to look on the bright side. Whatever befalls him, he can identify a positive aspect to it.

Take the injury which has ruled him out of action for the last three months. Of course he would far rather it had not happened – besides preventing him from competing, it has caused him considerable pain – but rather than merely mope about it, he has been able to put it into perspective.

"If it had happened last year it would have been a real disaster," he says. "It would have been really frustrating to watch the Olympics from home. So whilst it was difficult, it could have been a lot worse."

Indeed, had it happened last year and stopped him going to Beijing his life would be radically different. There would have been no haul of three gold medals on the cycling track, no subsequent knighthood, no being hailed as Scotland's greatest ever Olympian . . . .

He had already achieved a great deal before last summer, accumulating armfuls of medals from Olympic and Commonwealth Games and world championships, but that triple triumph ensured his place in history, and his transformation into a major role model for the nation's youth. Which is the part he is playing when we meet at the Highland Spring Sports Day in Largs.

The venue is Sport Scotland's Inverclyde centre, where around 50 children have gathered to take part in a range of activities. Hoy comes inside for a chat after supervising the mountain-biking and cycling skills sessions, and looks unusually puzzled.

"I thought it was a wind-up," he explains. "One of the kids was called Chris Hoy."

Given the children in question were all of primary school age, it seems possible that this boy was named after the 33-year-old from Edinburgh, but Hoy himself is having none of it. "I'd be very surprised," he says.

"I don't know how old he is – I think he's around ten. I don't think anyone had heard of me ten years ago, so it must just be a sheer coincidence."

Actually quite a few people had heard of him a decade ago, as it was in 1999 that he won his first world championship medal. But it is typical of Hoy's humility that he simply cannot conceive of anyone being given his name.

And it is a quality that is just as important to his success as his optimism. That modesty, coupled with his interest in the smallest, most mundane aspect of his preparation, ensures he does not get carried away.

Hoy may have achieved extraordinary things, but in the best possible way he remains an ordinary, approachable individual. The other plus side arising from his crash on a Copenhagen track is that he has been able to take part in activities such as this sports day.

"Because people know that you're not training, that's when they take the opportunity to try and get you to come and do stuff," he explains. "I've had three or four school visits, dinners, charity events, things like that.

"But I could only do all that because I was injured and wasn't training. I'll soon be back at the day job."

After the lengthiest lay-off of his career he is certainly itching to be back as soon as possible. "I'd been to the world championships 13 years in a row, so it was a big frustration for me sitting watching them on TV at home," he says. "But that's life.

"I had all kinds of problems with swelling and fluid collecting and basically I needed complete rest because it was my hip. Obviously almost everything you do involves your hip – on your bike, running or walking, even getting out your car you have to flex your hip – so it's been difficult trying to do anything over the last two months.

"But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. And I'm getting ready to get back into full-time training."

He does not expect to be at his best on a bike until around the end of the year, but is looking forward to the world championships next March and then the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October. After that, the countdown to London 2012 will be well under way – indeed, for Hoy as for many Olympians, it began the day the Beijing Games ended.

"You work in four-year cycles, and you also plan your seasons year by year. Every year there are world championships, so you also have interim goals between Olympic Games.

"You plan ahead, you have an ideal scenario, but then you have to see what happens along the way. To finish my career with a Commonwealth Games in Glasgow would be the perfect ending, but it's whether, after London 2012, I'll be 36 then and can go on for two more years.

"All sorts of things can change in a very short space of time. So you have your goals and aims, but you have to wait and see what happens."

If he is not competing in 2014, it is likely he will still be involved in cycling. "I think I'd like to stay in the sport in some capacity, whether it's coaching or being involved in the management of the team. It would be good to be involved and give some of my experience back.

"You can learn a lot in your career and you don't want to see that disappear. As I said, you want to give something back and hopefully keep the sport developing.

"But having said that, there are plenty of other guys who could do that. It's not a one-man show: you've got a team of incredibly successful cyclists, very experienced coaches, so it's not as if it would be up to one individual to try and keep that going. But at the same time you do want to do your bit to keep things going."

Hoy believes that it was a willingness to keep things going that saw him succeed when other, more talented athletes gave up. "At school I was good at sport, I was one of the best in the class, but I wasn't always the best," he recalls. "There were always kids in each sport who had this amazing talent.

"At other schools as well – I used to play rugby against other schools in and around Edinburgh, and you'd see one or two athletes who you'd think were certain to play for Scotland one day. And a lot of them were never heard of again. And it just goes to show that it's not just about talent – you have to have the support as well, and you have to have somebody to give you the guidance and the confidence to keep at it.

"And also the hard work. Some of the guys I played against at school were just so good that when it came to the point where they had to do a bit more work than they were used to they didn't really enjoy it that much."

Being a young rugby player at the same school Gavin Hastings had attended, Hoy did not need to look too far for his own boyhood hero. "When I was a wee boy I used to go and watch internationals at Murrayfield, and Gavin was captain of the team.

"I met him in Primary Six or Seven. We had a rugby training session and he came down to say hello and give us a few tips.

"I remember just thinking, 'Wow'. It was a really big moment for me when I was that age, to meet my hero.

"I played rugby until I was about 15, 16. I was stand-off. I played centre as well, but I was stand-off initially.

"I did rugby, I did rowing as well. I loved all sports, but the older you get the more difficult it is to keep them all going. If you're playing rugby on a Saturday morning and training during the week, and doing rowing as well, and cycling events...

"You can't do everything. Cycling was the one thing I thought I could take to a higher level once I'd finished with school.

"And then in cycling terms Graeme Obree really inspired me. In the early 1990s he was a world champion, along with Chris Boardman at the time. Both of them were heroes.

"Particularly to have a Scottish athlete who was doing it on no support . . . . Graeme was doing it on a shoestring budget. He had amazing ideas and he was just a one-off, a truly unique character. He built his bike basically from scrap bits of metal and bearings from a washing machine, and then he designed new riding positions.

"All these things were just incredible. And they captured my imagination in terms of getting interested in cycling.."

Hoy's own feats have captured the imagination of a new generation, but while he is natural and at ease with everyone he meets, his innate modesty means he still almost finds it surprising that so many people should be interested in and impressed by him.

"It's just amazing to think that what you achieve on the bike on the track can have a positive impact on people," he said.

"When people come up to you and say hello in the street they seem genuinely pleased to meet you. It's fantastic.

"Cycling's not a massive sport. It's growing, but to be able to raise its profile like that is great.

"I'm very fortunate to have something that I love as a full-time job, basically. You have a very limited career: You don't have the opportunity of a golfer or a snooker player to go on into your later years. It's quite a short career and you have to make the most of it."

The exact duration of Hoy's career may not be decided yet, but he has certainly already made the most of it.