Manchester Velodrome is a scary place; a huge oval shaped, multi-tiered maze with dozens of doors leading to nowhere like a Scooby Doo cartoon.  Inside lurk hulking males and sinewy females, speeding round and round the track like wild horses. Their bikes are moving so fast that the lightest nudge could propel their rippling frames to a bone shuddering landing and stretcher bound exit.  This is no place for kids. 

But, as Scotland’s top cyclist Chris Hoy, sitting trackside, points out to In The Winning Zone, there seem to more and more ‘kids’ around the velodrome every day: “It’s very fortunate that there are already an incredible amount of young guys coming through, though they’ve become more of a pest than a help now because they’re threatening our places!”

To be threatening someone with such humbling stature in cycling as Chris, himself only 31, is no mean feat.  His achievements in track cycling rank among the best ever recorded, and certainly the best in Scotland.  Two Olympic medals, gold and silver; Four Commonwealth Games medals, two gold and two bronze; Eight World Championship medals, five of which are gold.  He is the sea level kilo world record holder, and has just set the new record for 500m at altitude.  He is quite possibly the world's greatest track cyclist ever.

He has enough precious metal to create his own gallery.  But, for now, Chris Hoy is more interested in adding to the collection, rather than displaying it.  Having been disappointed by the UCI’s (Union Cycliste Internationale) decision to scrap his favoured and world record holding event, the kilo, from the Olympic agenda, Chris’s main focus is getting himself and his young accomplices to Beijing in 2008 for the team sprint event.

“We’re all fighting for places in next year’s Olympic sprint team - but it’s great and it keeps me on my toes.  We’ve got Jason Kenny, the World junior champion from last year, Ross Edgar (Scottish Commonwealth Silver medallist) and Matt Crampton who are all in their early twenties.  These guys are so far ahead of where I was at their age it’s frightening.  If they can keep it going the sky’s the limit.”

Is Chris happy for the youngsters to be challenging him and progressing so quickly?  “So as long as they don’t reach that limit until after I’ve retired that’s perfect!  I’ll be there to support them after I’ve hung my wheels up!”

It is exciting to imagine, considering what Chris has achieved, how successful these up and comers can be if they are as far ahead in terms of development as Chris reckons they are.  Cycling in Britain today is poles apart from what Chris grew up with just ten years ago.  It isn’t just at a different level; it is in a different stratosphere.

Having grown up in the competitive environment of BMX racing from the age of seven, track cycling was a natural progression for Chris, even though he had shown an aptitude for rowing and rugby in his years at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh.  But he didn’t exactly step into the sport before a rapturous applause.  Why?  There was no-one there to welcome him.

“There were no sprint coaches in Britain at the time and we were really just doing our training on guess-work.  We were self coached in terms of myself and Craig MacLean (another Scottish Olympic medallist) and the other sprinters in that group.  We coached ourselves and coached each other.  We were competing at British National level and there was no-one to guide us, no advice.  We would see what other countries were doing, showing up and winning by massive margins and we would think, how are they doing this?”

But, as Chris realises, cycling wasn’t only sport to be suffering from under-achievement, under-funding and, worst of all, negligence from the British sporting authorities.  “It was sad at the time because Britain was in the doldrums in terms of most sport.  We only got one gold medal in the Atlanta Olympics which is as bad as you can get.  With cycling we had nothing in terms of facilities.  You would spend the summer months on the track and then come September and October you would stop [because Edinburgh velodrome, where they trained, is an outdoor track], and by March or April you would be back to square one.  You would progress only to fall back again.”

Thankfully though, Chris stuck at it, with no small thanks to the influence of his career long team-mate MacLean: “I was fortunate really, I was quite young.  It was much more difficult for someone like Craig.  He was older and much faster so I had something to aim for and someone to train with.  For him it was hard because he was top of the pile so he didn’t have anyone to stretch him out.  I was lucky to have Craig there.  It was impressive how he managed to stay inventive in training.”

But, as it turned out, Chris took a positive from this potentially disastrous negative and used Britain’s lowly status as a chance to propel him to greater things: “Because the standard wasn’t that high I thought I maybe could make the Olympics.  It was a big carrot for me.”

A big, golden carrot to be precise.  But was the Olympics his lifelong dream?  Was there always an Olympian desire beating at the back of his heart?  “I think I get the buzz from achieving something that may not be possible.  I’ve always dreamed of being an Olympic Champion but I never thought I was going to be one.  As a kid I never put myself in the same bracket as the guys who were winning medals at the top level, but what I did do was set targets on the way there.  I said I wanted to be Scottish Champion so I did it. 
Then I said I wanted to be British Champion so I did that too.  If you keep resetting your goals and you keep hitting them, then eventually you will reach the top.”

Pretty sound advice from someone who has been there, done that and got the gold medal.  And, as the evidence suggest, sometimes when the odds are heavily stacked against dragging yourself, or your sport, out of the gutters, that is when the most spectacular results are achieved.  Hoy, MacLean and his team got to where they are through hunger and determination.  And though it was tough, Chris doesn’t complain.

“I don’t think it did me any harm at all.  I think it helps separate those who really want it from those who just like the idea of being a professional sportsman.  When I was 17 or 18, cycling wasn’t a glamorous thing to do.  You had a part-time job or scrounge off your folks.  Basically you were scraping by.”

Having said that however, he is still chuffed to be enjoying the step-up in standards nowadays: “As soon as I graduated [Chris studied Sport Science at St Andrews and Edinburgh] in 1999 the Lottery funding had just come on board.  It was good timing and I was really fortunate that it happened in that way.”

Since the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, for which the velodrome was built, and along with the Lottery funding, cycling has enjoyed a renaissance in the UK, the evidence of which is tangible by the weight of Britain’s medal collection.  Chris Hoy plans to keep going until London 2012, by which time he will be 36.  But age is no barrier to his quest for glory.

“It’s always nice to go out on top but then I also won’t stop early just for the fear of getting beat.  Hopefully I can keep going long enough and have the form to still be doing it in London.  It’s all about enjoyment.  I’ll keep going as long as I’m enjoying it and I don’t foresee any change in that at the moment.”

RO

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