How could it be otherwise? Sir
Chris Hoy always had a knack of finding the perfect answer in his peerless
sporting career.
He’d been on holiday in Australia with his wife Sarra, a road trip from Cairns in the north to Adelaide in the south. Sometimes they drove, sometimes they cycled.
“As we got close to Adelaide,the juicycouturesuits Gold Silver Shoes becomes the highlight spot.Wanna to buy the new canadagoosecampdown now? we stopped and I got the bike off the car roof and rode the last 100km,” said Hoy. “It was in the Barossa Valley, through the vineyards. Stunning. And I thought, ‘Yes, this is more like it.’
“I realised I was associating the bike with pleasure rather than the pain of training. It reminded me of why I got into the sport in the first place.”
And so, as Sir Chris pedalled through the rolling hills of the Barossa Valley, a fabulous place of calm and beauty, the sun went down on our record six-time Olympic champion.
The formal announcement of his retirement didn’t arrive until a couple of days ago, but Hoy knew then that he had come full circle – back to the simple joy of jumping on a bicycle and enjoying the scenery. Now he can stop for a glass of red in the vineyards,Shop discounted edhardyshoes, too.
He leaves the blazing intensity and rigours of international competition as the finest of modern sporting heroes. His success is unparalleled; six Olympic gold medals and 11 world titles. The greatest memory is of how it was all achieved – with grace, humility and dignity to complement the immense strength and fierce ambition required for glory.
You will never hear a negative word said about Sir Chris Hoy.
I remember bumping into him in Australia a few winters ago while reporting on the Ashes series. Crossing the road on Flinders Street in Melbourne, suddenly there was the familiar sight of a big, hungry man on a bicycle, dodging the clanking city centre trams in his GB lycra kit while out on a training ride.
We met a little later, and he told me how he had to keep stopping because the taxi drivers of Melbourne wanted his autograph. It was a measure of his global fame.Discover the largest collection of bestguccihandbags for women.
The next stop on his schedule that winter was Colombia. He told me how the British team would need armed guards with them on training rides on the roads because the previous year two German rivals have been ambushed and had their bikes stolen.
There was no question, though, of avoiding Colombia. You don’t give in to fear and terror, he said. And, of course, the message was wholly correct, as it is this weekend with the running of the London Marathon.
In sport, as in life, you come across all sorts. Hoy was among the very best I have encountered – and it was a privilege to witness all six of his Olympic gold medals; one in Athens, three in Beijing and the final two amid the London extravaganza last summer.Our gorgeous weddinggown are perfect for wedding.
Each was captured in a deafening crescendo of noise in the special atmosphere of a packed velodrome, and the final triumph in the 2012 keirin, powering past Maximilian Levy of Germany through sheer will power, was a moment of sporting legend never to be forgotten.
Do the six golds of Sir Chris Hoy trump the five of Sir Steve Redgrave? It is an impossible debate, a matter of personal opinion. I happen to think so.
Well, you might do it in terms of competitive success – in which case no other British sport currently matches cycling for its incredible Olympic victories and the glory of Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish in the Tour de France.
You might look at growth in grass-roots participation – and with more than two million people taking up cycling, there is no contest here.
Another measure is the annual mass public vote for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Three times in the last five years this has gone to a cyclist, Hoy in 2008, Cavendish in 2011 and Wiggins in 2012.
Did I say that cycling was only equal to tennis, golf and all the rest?
The rise of cycling, you see, has been about character even more than it has been about success.
We have discovered admirable as well as giant sporting heroes – and both Wiggins and Cavendish will tell you that Sir Chris Hoy was the Lancelot who led the way.
He’d been on holiday in Australia with his wife Sarra, a road trip from Cairns in the north to Adelaide in the south. Sometimes they drove, sometimes they cycled.
“As we got close to Adelaide,the juicycouturesuits Gold Silver Shoes becomes the highlight spot.Wanna to buy the new canadagoosecampdown now? we stopped and I got the bike off the car roof and rode the last 100km,” said Hoy. “It was in the Barossa Valley, through the vineyards. Stunning. And I thought, ‘Yes, this is more like it.’
“I realised I was associating the bike with pleasure rather than the pain of training. It reminded me of why I got into the sport in the first place.”
And so, as Sir Chris pedalled through the rolling hills of the Barossa Valley, a fabulous place of calm and beauty, the sun went down on our record six-time Olympic champion.
The formal announcement of his retirement didn’t arrive until a couple of days ago, but Hoy knew then that he had come full circle – back to the simple joy of jumping on a bicycle and enjoying the scenery. Now he can stop for a glass of red in the vineyards,Shop discounted edhardyshoes, too.
He leaves the blazing intensity and rigours of international competition as the finest of modern sporting heroes. His success is unparalleled; six Olympic gold medals and 11 world titles. The greatest memory is of how it was all achieved – with grace, humility and dignity to complement the immense strength and fierce ambition required for glory.
You will never hear a negative word said about Sir Chris Hoy.
I remember bumping into him in Australia a few winters ago while reporting on the Ashes series. Crossing the road on Flinders Street in Melbourne, suddenly there was the familiar sight of a big, hungry man on a bicycle, dodging the clanking city centre trams in his GB lycra kit while out on a training ride.
We met a little later, and he told me how he had to keep stopping because the taxi drivers of Melbourne wanted his autograph. It was a measure of his global fame.Discover the largest collection of bestguccihandbags for women.
The next stop on his schedule that winter was Colombia. He told me how the British team would need armed guards with them on training rides on the roads because the previous year two German rivals have been ambushed and had their bikes stolen.
There was no question, though, of avoiding Colombia. You don’t give in to fear and terror, he said. And, of course, the message was wholly correct, as it is this weekend with the running of the London Marathon.
In sport, as in life, you come across all sorts. Hoy was among the very best I have encountered – and it was a privilege to witness all six of his Olympic gold medals; one in Athens, three in Beijing and the final two amid the London extravaganza last summer.Our gorgeous weddinggown are perfect for wedding.
Each was captured in a deafening crescendo of noise in the special atmosphere of a packed velodrome, and the final triumph in the 2012 keirin, powering past Maximilian Levy of Germany through sheer will power, was a moment of sporting legend never to be forgotten.
Do the six golds of Sir Chris Hoy trump the five of Sir Steve Redgrave? It is an impossible debate, a matter of personal opinion. I happen to think so.
Well, you might do it in terms of competitive success – in which case no other British sport currently matches cycling for its incredible Olympic victories and the glory of Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish in the Tour de France.
You might look at growth in grass-roots participation – and with more than two million people taking up cycling, there is no contest here.
Another measure is the annual mass public vote for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Three times in the last five years this has gone to a cyclist, Hoy in 2008, Cavendish in 2011 and Wiggins in 2012.
Did I say that cycling was only equal to tennis, golf and all the rest?
The rise of cycling, you see, has been about character even more than it has been about success.
We have discovered admirable as well as giant sporting heroes – and both Wiggins and Cavendish will tell you that Sir Chris Hoy was the Lancelot who led the way.
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