London 2012 Olympics: on this form Sir Chris Hoy will become our greatest Olympian

[richard]

Not only did Sir Chris Hoy have a hand in helping to design the mighty London 2012 ‘Pringle’; now, it turns out, the great man is in charge of decorating his new gaff and laying the foundations for a party even bigger than this splendid house-warming, all the time while controlling the ‘wall of sound’ volume switch in what he describes as the “world’s best velodrome”.

Six months ago Hoy, already with half an eye on this World Cup and Olympic test meeting after a fairly disappointing season by his soaring standards, explained to me how important it would be to make an early statement at the Games venue.

“This is your territory; when people come to race here, they’re entering your domain. The track is no different to any around the world but you need to let them know this is your den, your track.”

Well, now they all know. Again. This was the weekend Hoy invited them to the ‘pleasure drome’ and inflicted grievous pain, laying down one hell of an Olympic marker.

A bronze in the team sprint on Friday, pedalling faster than ever to land keirin gold on Saturday night, and all topped off with a Sunday afternoon treat as he landed a 52nd World Cup medal to win the sprint. He was quite, quite magnificent.

He beat them every which way. From the back, from the front; on the outside, on the inside; pushing early, rallying late. Fourteen races in three days and, at the end, was still powering around the final bend at 45mph, crushing the last challenger, Germany’s Max Levy, with emphatic brilliance. What a vision; amid a rare old din, it did not feel difficult to be transported to a warm, golden night here in August. If he repeats the trick then, Hoy will become, with six golds, Britain’s most successful Olympian ever. You would not put it past him now.

“I’ve got tired legs,” he told us all, with marvellous pointlessness. Of course he was spent after all those remarkable demonstrations of power, resilience and skill. Yet he never betrayed it out there. He never gave any opponent an inkling that he was, even momentarily, going to rest on his laurels.

That is because he never does. Hoy collects World Cup titles – 35 and counting now – like kids unwrap World Cup stickers. This was an exercise in pre-Olympic thigh slapping and chest beating. If you want to beat me, Hoy was telling all the world’s best sprinters, you have to do much, much better than this; you have to be faster, fitter, stronger than me.

And as for mental resilience? He inhabits a different league. There was just one moment when you felt Hoy might succumb to weariness, making a tactical mistake to go 1-0 down to his old foe, Frenchman Grégory Baugé, in the quarter-final.

A lesser athlete, settling for his handsome weekend’s work, might have lost his edge, settled for a bit of a rest. Not Hoy. What followed were two wins studded with clarity of purpose and, finally, blind ‘thou shalt not pass’ determination as he held on to win the decider by a quarter of a wheel.

“A bit of guts,” he called that. Well, he has always had that but now he is competing as Sir Chris, it was as if he was somehow steeled further by the extra responsibility of being a nation’s knight rider. He makes a great national monument, as endlessly solid and awesome as Arthur’s Seat.

And to think there were those who, only last year, were wondering if he might just be an athlete in decline, approaching 36.

“I can understand why they might think that,” he had acknowledged back then, before assuring me he had never believed anything other than that he would still qualify to defend all three of his Olympic titles.

Now, even Jason Kenny, who has had Hoy’s measure in recent races, is reminded again of who’s the daddy after he bowed out in the quarter-finals, even if Hoy still expects a backlash from the defending champion at April’s World Championships in Melbourne. “Jason won’t lie down and accept it,” he knows.

As for himself, Hoy sounded like a big kid, his face bathed in a huge smile on the rostrum. “I’ve surprised myself a bit because this is the best I’ve been since Beijing, no question,” he said.

Wow. If that is truly the case, then that is just about as good as it gets.

The times and splits, including hitting a record 49mph in the keirin and being the only man to clock a sub-10-second 200 metres in the sprint, informed him of his magnificent form. “But it’s not just the cold figures. It’s about how I’m approaching racing, not hesitating, taking races by the scruff of the neck.”

This whole test event seemed quite exhilarating, making you feel, with its noisy patrons and breakneck competition, that it may well be the must-have ticket of the entire Games. So why wouldn’t Hoy be the must-see athlete too? As the trackside banner put it, “The Real McHoy” is back.


Source
By Ian Chadband
www.telegraph.co.uk