There are two different types of character you get in a sprint cyclist, says Sir Chris Hoy, plumping for a straight-forward dog analogy to crystallise his point. There are the Labradors, who “follow what they’re told”, and the Rottweilers, who generally don’t.
Which breed would Hoy be more akin to? “I was a Labrador actually,” he says with a smile. “Easy to get on with, good for adverts.”
His laid back manner is demonstrated by the way he deals with journalists during a Q&A he hosts following UK Sport’s press conference in which the quango unveils its #DiscoverYourPower talent identification campaign – a campaign he is supporting.
While Hoy talks amiably about his life since retirement in 2012 and the prospects of the GB sprint team at Rio 2016, it is still abundantly clear that UK Sport has chosen the six-time Olympic gold medallist as the poster boy for its new initiative because of the steely determination and single-minded will to win that made him one of the UK’s greatest Olympians.
“The thing I miss most about being an athlete is the day-to-day. It’s being part of a team, the common goal, the camaraderie. It’s hard work, it’s huge commitment – it’s brilliant,” he explains.
“It’s not just about a few months of focus, it could take up a good 10 years of your life. It’s about having the ability to sustain that and not think too far ahead into the future.”
That – simply – is Hoy’s message to the 15-21 year-old athletes thinking of enrolling on #DiscoverYourPower. The scheme – created by UK Sport and British Cycling – was devised to encourage promising athletes from other sport, with the right physiology and attitude, to enrol on a fast-track programme to potentially make the Team GB sprint squad for Tokyo 2020 and follow in Hoy’s footsteps.
“There could be a number of young individuals out there who will see this today and think ‘I fancy giving that a go’, and they can go on to be future champions,” says Hoy, albeit with a warning: “For somebody who might be thinking about trying it, I would say once you’re an elite athlete there’s a huge amount of hard work. You do it at the expense of everything else, you work exclusively pursuing that one goal, but it takes a lot of time to get to that point.”
The elite sports quango turned to Hoy to front the campaign because he is perhaps its best example of an athlete who tried several sports before settling on sprint because his fast-twitch muscles made him physiologically suited to the discipline.
Prior to that the Scotsman tried a range of sports, including football, rugby rowing and mountain biking.
“Rowing taught me about discipline, the training for rowing was an important step towards cycling,” he says. “I’m a big believer that talent is an overrated word. It implies you can turn up, wave a magic wand a realise you’re a fantastic cyclist. It’s all about the work you need to do to get there. Do you have the right attitude? Do you have the right commitment? Do you have the right physiology?”
Hoy, speaking before this month’s UCI Track Cycling World Champs in London – where our cover star, Jason Kenny, was among the British winners – says attitude is the most important attribute he has seen in champions across all types of sport. “It’s about the way they take responsibility for their own performance. They don’t rely on motivation for a coach or an audience.”
Young athletes interested in taking part in #DiscoverYourPower will have the chance to display this attitude during a series of assessments being held by UK Sport and British Cycling from July.
