The cycling icon and multi-time Olympic gold medalist has been given between two and four years to live after being diagnosed with stage four cancer
Sir Chris Hoy is hoping to defy doctors after being told he has just two to four years to live.
The cycling hero, a six-time Olympic champion, was first diagnosed with cancer in September last year, but announced last month that his condition was terminal. After a tumour was found on the 48-year-old’s shoulder, a scan found primary cancer in his prostate, which had metastasised to his bones.
But he says the ‘excruciating’ treatment he is receiving for stage four prostate cancer is ‘working’ and is defiantly hoping to beat doctors predictions.
“Well the plan is, right now, keep doing what I’m doing in terms of treatment because it’s working,” he told The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio. “Touch wood – the diagnosis was two to four years, but actually if you look beyond that it can be many years.
“There’s people out there that are still around who’ve been in the similar situation for 20 years. So you know, there’s hope. There is hope and I’m very lucky that there is treatment for me. But also you don’t know, it could be less than that. So that is the target – crack on for many years, ideally.”
Hoy has spoken in detail about his situation in his memoir All That Matters , as he explained: “It’s a book for anybody going through a difficult time. But you can get through it.
“You have to be able to be quite tough for yourself in terms of saying, right, I’m going to actively choose not to embrace the negative thoughts. I’m going to actively not, I’m not going to let them creep in.
“They will, they will come, but you’ve got to push them away and focus on, focus on the here and the now,” he added. “You don’t think too far ahead. You know, the future doesn’t exist yet. All we’ve got is the present.”
Heartbreakingly, Hoy’s wife Sarra – with whom he has two young children aged 10 and seven – was also diagnosed with a “very active and aggressive’ form of multiple sclerosis just weeks after the cyclist learnt he had incurable cancer.
Hoy has admitted that the last 12 months have been “the toughest year of our lives by some stretch”.
