Sir Chris Hoy’s wife has revealed the heartbreaking way the couple’s two children reacted when they learned of their father’s cancer diagnosis.
The cycling legend and Olympic champion was given the crushing news he was battling cancer in September 2023 after visiting the doctor about discomfort in his shoulder and ribs.
Hoy however didn’t make public his health issues until a year later, around the same time that he discovered the disease had spread to his bones and become terminal.
Now, the 49-year-old and his partner Lady Sarra Hoy have opened up about what has been a difficult few years, revealing their two children blamed themselves for their father’s illness.
The Hoys share two children together, 11-year-old Callum and eight-year-old Chloe Rose.
Speaking to the BBCon Monday, Lady Sarra said: ‘They were scared, they had heard about cancer.
‘Questions come very quickly, will he die? Will I catch it? Did I cause it? Is it because I was naughty? I wanted to make cancer and chemotherapy part of our lives.’
Lady Sarra was herself devastatingly diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) at the age of 44 in October 2023, less than a month after her husband was made aware of his health problems. She discovered the disease after visiting the doctors over tingling in her tongue and face.
MS is an illness in which the immune system attacks the body and causes nerve damage to the brain and spinal cord.
The couple have now created a documentary titled Sir Chris Hoy: Cancer, Courage and Me to offer viewers an insight into their lives over the last couple of years.
Opening up on his and his wife’s health troubles last week, Hoy explained: ‘It’s funny, on one hand, you adapt very quickly and you’re in the kind of fight or flight mode when you first get the news.
‘But there comes a moment where the dust settles briefly, and you can’t believe that you’re in this situation, that you’re, you know, I was very quickly into chemotherapy and into treatment.
‘And you just think, how has it come to this all of a sudden? And then with Sarra’s MS diagnosis, which came very shortly after my cancer diagnosis, it was a double whammy.
‘But it’s not forgetting to enjoy the moment and to make the most of every day.’
Hoy has done just that since his diagnosis and has continued to ‘do what he loves’ – riding bikes.
However the Scotsman suffered a broken leg earlier this year in the ‘worst crash’ he’s ever experienced, despite spending almost 30 years as a professional cyclist in the velodrome.
Speaking on Sky Sports last week, he explained: ‘I’ve smashed up my leg on the mountain bike. That’s the worst thing that’s happened recently. You just don’t bounce like you do when you’re younger.
‘It was a big one but I’m doing better now. I’m still on crutches, hobbling about, but by the time I’m there for the darts final on January 3, hopefully I’ll be a bit more mobile.
‘Worse things happen. I’ve been riding bikes for 43 years and it’s the worst crash I’ve ever had. I’m pretty lucky that’s the worst one I’ve had in all those years of riding.
‘You can trip walking up steps to your front door and hurt yourself. The point is I’m not a massive risk taker, but I want to live my life and I want to make the most of it.
‘None of us are here forever so you want to make the most of the time you have and do the things you enjoy.
‘I’ve just had an unfortunate spill and it’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m doing alright now, I wasn’t doing so well in the immediate aftermath of it, but looking forward to Christmas.’
Hoy also offered a promising update on his battle against cancer, revealing that his condition is now ‘stable’ thanks to successful treatment.
‘Once you’ve got past the diagnosis, which for me was over two years ago, now the first part of that is pretty grim and then you start the treatment,’ he added.
‘Then, if you’re lucky like me, you respond to the treatment and enter a period of kind of stability.
‘It’s not completely stable, there’s times where it comes back and then you have to change treatment, but the fortunate thing for me in my situation, there are a number of different treatments out there, as there is for any man with prostate cancer.
‘It’s putting faith in science and knowing that right today, there are countless people all around the world working on new medications, new treatments, and with the hope that one day it won’t be a terminal diagnosis, but I’m doing fine.’
