Sir Chris Hoy has opened up on how he dealt with being diagnosed with incurable cancer
Olympic hero Sir Chris Hoy has revealed how he would think about living with stage four cancer every morning in the aftermath of being diagnosed with the disease in 2023. The cycling legend’s cancer has since metastasised to his bones, and in 2024, he was warned by doctors that he had between two and four years to live.
The 50-year-old won 37 medals across a stunning career as a track cyclist, including six Olympic gold medals. Speaking on the Breast Cancer Now podcast, Sir Chris touched upon how he dealt with the news that he had incurable cancer but how he refused to let it define him.
“No one knows what’s coming tomorrow, so enjoy today and make the most of it,” he said. “In terms of the terminology and what stage four means. Stage four, metastatic, is spread from a primary source. It’s spread around the body and it’s not something you can truly get rid of.
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“You can get to a stage where the scans are clear, which is amazing if you can get to that point, but it doesn’t mean it won’t come back.
“It will come back at some stage. But it’s about controlling that and finding ways to live with your cancer and try and not let it dictate who you are and not let it be the first thing you think about in the morning when you wake up, or the last thing you think about before you go to sleep at night. I feel that took me, probably about six months, maybe more?”
Elaborating on how little he knew about his condition upon his diagnosis, he said: “I was one of those people that didn’t know [about incurable cancer] it was explained to me in one sentence, ‘You have incurable cancer, it’s treatable, but it’s incurable,’ so in the space of one sentence my whole world had been turned upside down and all hope had been taken away.
“I guess it’s then up to you to rebuild, find that hope and that way forward. There’s no easy way of hearing that information and getting your head around it. It takes time as a kind of grieving process.
“You’re grieving the life that you thought you had ahead of you and how it was going to pan out, but none of us knows what’s coming tomorrow. And that’s not a morbid thing. It should be a positive thing to remind us to enjoy today and to free ourselves from a lot of the things we worry about.”
Sir Chris, who is planning another Tour de 4 charity cycle race in September, after the inaugural event raised more than £3.1million last year, maintains a stunning resilience, adding that he prefers to stay in control in an ultimately uncontrollable situation.
He added: “It’s not a sudden day where it stops happening. Scan times, blood tests, and medical meetings, it comes back to the surface. When you walk into the oncologist’s office, it’s not a nice feeling waiting to get news about whatever the latest state of play is. Stage four, to me, is something that you will live with for the rest of your life.
“We don’t get to choose what happens to us, nobody does, but we can choose how we respond to those situations and that’s something I repeat to myself when it’s difficult. You have to understand what you control. If you’re fighting against the things that are out of your control, then you’re never going to be happy, or you’re never going to be settled or make the most of whatever situation you’re in.
“You can still fight for yourself and fight for your situation. There are things you can’t change and you have to accept that and this has really brought that into focus.”
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