Sport personality
Chris Hoy

Profession
Cyclist. Three times gold medallist, Beijing 2008

Date of Birth
23 Mar 1976

Personal best:
Graeme Obree's autobiography The Flying Scotsman

“I had been here many times before in my mind, and as the five beeps started for the gate release, I was sucked totally into my imagined effort, pedal stroke to pedal stroke, exactly following my mental groove. The pain, hyperventilation and the ‘don’t push me any further’ signals from my body all happened as I had visualised over and over, and I rode right through it all as part of my programmed ride.

I was riding to annihilation like a metronomic robot, still totally in my groove with over 1km still to go, and at this point, I had ignored more safety alarms from my body than I had ever done before, but now, I started catching glimpses of Philippe on the corners, so I was up on him, and with 1km to go, I was able to switch to ‘hard as I can’ mode and out of my groove, which would have caused physical damage if I had to see it through. I won.”

(used with kind permission of Birlinn Ltd)

Background:
Graeme Obree is a Scottish racing cyclist who in July 1993 broke the world hour record achieving a distance of 51.596km. This record was to be broken a week later by English cyclist Chris Boardman, but Graeme retook the record in April 1994.

Chris Hoy says:
“I recently read Graeme Obree's autobiography The Flying Scotsman which I found deeply moving. It was an incredibly open and honest account of how he battled with depression and yet managed to become a World Champion and World Record holder. His determination and single-mindedness was and still is a true inspiration to me”.