Sir Chris Hoy

Sir Chris Hoy is a true sporting legend and one of the most successful British athletes of all time with six gold medals and one silver.

Chris won his first Olympic gold medal in Athens 2004, won three gold medals at the Beijing Olympics and cemented his name in the history books by winning two golds at the London Olympics in 2012.

Following his historic hat-trick of gold medals in Beijing , Chris was voted 2008 BBC Sports Personality of the Year. He was also awarded a Knighthood in the 2009 New Year Honours list.

TRANSCRIPT

Jake [00:00:00] Hi there I'm Jake Humphrey. You're listening to High Performance, the podcast that delves into the minds of some of the most successful athletes, visionaries, entrepreneurs and artists on the planet and aims to unlock the very secrets of their success. So today we're in Manchester, tucked away from a cold, wet day, as always, alongside me, the brains of the operation. My co-host, psychologist, professor, author, Damian Hughes. Damian, I think we're both kind of intrigued about today's guest, because in every possible way, I think he represents High Performance.

Damian [00:00:29] Yeah, very much what the area that I'm most in intrigued to speak to our guest today around is, this guy's a true cultural architect. This is a guy that went into an environment, and really set the standards and shaped the culture around him. I'm intrigued to find out a little bit more about that.

Jake [00:00:45] Let's get going then and introduce an 11 times world champion, a six times Olympic champion, the second most decorated Olympic cyclist of all time. Since retiring from cycling he set up a successful business, written books, competed in motorsport, taken on charity roles, probably most importantly of all - become a dad. He is relentless. He absolutely is High Performance. He is Sir Chris Hoy.

Jake [00:01:07] Hello.

Chris [00:01:07] Hello. A cultural architect. I've never been called anything like that before. That's quite exciting.

Damian [00:01:12] I'll tell you where it comes from. So the idea of a cultural architect is somebody that shapes a culture like a leader without the title, necessarily. I recently met with Philip Hindes and Callum Skinner.

Chris [00:01:24] Yeah.

Damian [00:01:25] And it was really significant that they were talking about you in such reverential tones. There was like a real respect in the way that you spoke about the way you dealt with them as young athletes and the example you set. It was very much they saw you as the as the archetype of the standards of British Cycling.

Chris [00:01:41] And they always just take the mickey out of me. I never actually thought that.

Damian [00:01:44] Behind your back they do speak very highly of you.

Jake [00:01:47] So when we talk then about you being a cultural architect and we've heard there a couple of your former team-mates think you're exactly that.

[00:01:54] I know you're super modest but I need you to kind of, if you wouldn't mind, explain to us what you think they might be referring to.

Chris [00:02:01] Well, I'm a lot older than them for a start. I guess so. Sixteen years competed with GB Cycling. So I started out as the youngest member of the team. Finished as the oldest. And I think in the last few years, certainly with Phil, Phil came onto the team as a teenager. He came from, he was born in Germany. He's got British parents, but he was born and raised in Germany came onto the team two years before the Olympic Games in London. And, you know, for him to come into this High Performance team to adapt to a whole new environment, a whole different country. You know, basically I took him under my wing a little bit and tried to help him and, you know, integrate into the team. Selfishly as well, because I saw the potential he had for the team sprint. So I thought, well, he wasn't just being a nice guy. You know, it was nice to always want to try and help the younger athletes. But also I saw the potential he had and I thought, well, this guy could be the missing link to our team sprint. We were short of a man, one for the team sprint, and he had the potential. So I guess that was part of it was Phil had, yeah, could have been the. and he turned out to be that successful link in the team.

Jake [00:03:07] So when you talk about someone coming into your elite environment, take us in there if you can give us a kind of understanding of what was going on in that team that really from when you joined, they were kind of also rans in the cycling world to the dominant force on the planet.

Chris [00:03:21] I guess the biggest single thing that changed in the team was, was lottery funding. You know, I was in the team 1994. I got an email. I got a letter sent through when I was at university and I was in fresher's mode at that point, I hadn't touched my bike for about two or three months. It was you know, it was a hobby to me back then, riding a bike. And I got this letter from Doug Daily saying, we've got this new new velodrome opening in Manchester. We'd like you to come along this part of the development squads based on your performances at the national championships and the juniors last year and, you know, sort of literally two weekends a month.

And that was it. And that was that was enough of a lifeline to me. You think well, this is worth training for and continuing with. Because at that point, there was no funding. There was no pathway. There was no coaching. Yeah. There was nothing that really give you any hope at all that you could go on to become successful in your sport. There was, we didn't up until that point, we didn't have an indoor track. So you couldn't train 12 months of the year. You know, if you want to train 12 months of the year, you had to go abroad. If you went abroad, you had to have money.

You had to get sponsorship, but you didn't have the results to get the sponsorship. So it was this catch 22 situation. So we were all just amateurs, really, you know, just enthusiastic amateurs did the best we could. And then the lottery started. We got this new facility in Manchester. We had you know, I think I got paid ten thousand pounds in my first year.

Jake [00:04:43] And that would seemed like a lot of money.

Chris [00:04:44] That was like a million pounds to me. That literally was like me winning the lottery. So based on my performances at Commonwealth Games and national level, they identified me as a potential potential athlete of the future. But not you know, I hadn't really produced any goods at that point. And it was yeah, it was just this, it paid, it allowed me to pay for my rent and food and travel up and down from Edinburgh. And that was the lifeline. And it gave me that first foot up.

[00:05:08] But, you know, you go to the World Championships in Manchester in 1996. And, you know, you had a tracksuit top that you had to, you borrowed for the weekend. You had to sign out for it. You had this top, this grubby top that had been used, you know, for a few years before - different athletes. You had your own bike. So you borrowed a set of wheels from the team to to race on. You give the wheels back after the race. And it was you know, you just can't you explain these stories to younger athletes now and you say that this is what it was like and they can roll their eyes and they go, oh here he goes again about the old days. But it was genuinely proper amateur days. There was no funding, no support. Anyone that was involved was a volunteer.

[00:05:46] There were two Full-Time members of staff at that stage and the lottery was the life. And that's what started it all. Money doesn't buy your medals, but it gives you the chance to to get the right facilities, the right equipment, the right people to help out and to coach.

Damian [00:05:59] You often hear athletes when they look back. So you'll hear footballers talk about their apprenticeships when they were having to clean boots. And in your equivalent of having to travel up and down. What lessons do you think you were learning there during that time?

Chris [00:06:15] I think at that time I realised that, you know what, realistically, it wasn't about winning medals or being the best in the world. It was about a journey to see how good I could be. I never really believed that I was going to become the best in the world, not just because there wasn't the funding or support. But because I didn't believe that I was as good as anybody else. I thought, if I can get lucky here, some how, you know, my dream was to make the team for the Commonwealth games and maybe even make the Olympic team if I managed to squeak on there.

[00:06:39] But it wasn't because I thought, you know, I've got this this ability to do it. It was just at the centre of it, it was a passion. It was a love for what I did. So I just, I loved riding a bike. I loved racing. And I thought, if I can do this for as long as possible, I'm living the dream for as long as

possible. But eventually the real world will have to kick in and I have to get a real job and make my great auntie used to, everytime whenever I won a championship or a medal or whatever, you know, you go and see her and she'd be like, 'that's fantastic son. Well done.' You know, 'get a proper job.'

[00:07:09] You know, there was still this mentality of 'it's just, you're just playing around and having fun. And that's what it was did to begin with.'

Jake [00:07:15] That doesn't feel to me like an elite mentality, though. I suppose I assumed that you went in there truly believing that you could be world class and truly believing that you were going to be the one that was successful.

Chris [00:07:26] Oh, no, it didn't happen until later on. So I think it was it was a number of things that happened. And it wasn't just one moment. It was a number of stages that I went through to sort of transform from being just an enthusiastic amateur to becoming an Olympic champion.

And...

Jake [00:07:40] Can you talk us through that?

Chris [00:07:40] Yeah, sure. Well I had, because we didn't really have coaching infrastructure. We didn't have anybody there to tell us what to do. You had to work it out yourself. So I went to uni. I did sports science as my subject. I started in physics and maths and then changed pretty quickly to sports science. Again on the theme of enjoying what you do. I realised I was I was going to the to the library and I was getting papers out on sports science essentially to try and learn for myself to try and learn how to train better, to try and get the best out of myself. And I kind of thought, well, what's the point of me doing a degree that I'm not really enjoying? Why did I do something I've got a passion for? And it won't seem like I'm working. So I was doing a sport science to learn selfishly to try and make myself a better athlete, not just to get a degree. Then Craig McLean, my team-mate and club-mate, my friend. He was more of a coach and a mentor to me than anything. He just, I trained with him all the time and tried desperately to keep up with him. And he was my my benchmark on a really good day. If he was having a bad day, I could just about match his performance. So he was, I don't know what he got from training with me. But I got a lot from training with him because he helped drag me up in the early days. Jason Queally winning the gold medal in Sydney. You know Jason, Jason was just an ordinary bloke, this guy who was your mate, your team-mate, who won a gold medal at the Olympic Games. And it changed my view on what Olympic Champions were, because Olympic Champions, until that point, we don't have any in our team. Apart from Chris Boardman in Barcelona. And he was doing a different event. There was nobody in our event in the sprint events, that was an Olympic champion in our generation or even I think since of Reg Harris's time. So you never had anybody to aspire to, you didn't have a role model. You didn't have someone that you could look at and think I can emulate them. Until Jason came along and won that gold medal in Sydney. And it was it was a bit of a light bulb moment with Jason. And I thought, well, he's just this ordinary guy and he's won the gold medal if he can do it. I don't think I'm the same level as him yet, but maybe I could get close to that.

Damian [00:09:31] And did you ever speak to Jason at that time as well and try and pick his brains?

Chris [00:09:36] Absolutely. So that was the, basically the next year he had kind of a year out essentially just doing a bit of a down year. And, you know, having a guy in your team who was the current Olympic champion, you know, I just basically started picking his brains. Saying 'what training should I be doing?

[00:09:53] Learning as much as I could from him. And a measure of what Jason Queally as a man. As a person. Initially, he was like, 'yeah, great, I'll help you out.' And then as time went on, I started to improve and get closer to him. He didn't then say, 'all right, you've come far enough.

You know, we're going to get too close. We're were rivals. You know, you're on your own.' He still kept on helping me right up to the point that here in Manchester, 2002, Commonwealth Games, we were competing separately for England and Scotland in the same event. And he still helped me right up to the day. And on the night, I beath him by a couple of tenths of a second. And he was the first person to come over and congratulate me. And I remember at the time thinking, well,

if I'm ever in that situation, if I'm ever the old guy, the reigning champion, and someone else comes up and beats me. I want to be able to have that same graciousness and attitude. But Jason was, he was the person that that shaped me and gave me the belief that maybe I could do it too.

Damian [00:10:46] And how did you feel the night before that race when, it's like Luke Skywalker taking on...

Chris [00:10:51] I just won a medal. You know, even at that point, I just remember thinking, 'If I can get close here to get a Commonwealth Games medal for Scotland,' it was just, you know, a really, really big target for me. And I won it. And I just couldn't believe it, I was still just shocked. You know, I went up quite early and posted my time - because you go one by one against the clock. So he was last to go and I thought 'I've got a silver medal. This is amazing.' And then watched his ride. And saw him I'm dropping behind me and thinking, 'Well, is this really happening?' And then when, you know, when I won the race, that was a big moment.

[00:11:23] And then eight weeks later, winning the World Championship. So I had that belief that, well, I can do this now. I can do it again. Once you can prove that to yourself that it's possible.

People can tell you it's possible. But until you actually see it and do it yourself, I don't think you necessarily believe it. So that was, 2002 was a big year for me, and that was when things started to shift.

Jake [00:11:44] So you kind of almost felt in 2002 like the veil had been pulled back. The kind of secret to a High Performance life was exposed to you at that moment. And you realised, hold on a minute. There's no secret to success. Anyone can get it. And I've just been shown that.

Chris [00:11:58] Yeah.

Jake [00:11:59] And that was it. Then you're off.

Chris [00:12:00] Yeah.

[00:12:00] And it was people like Graeme Obree, who was a big hero of mine. He was a Scottish World Champion back in the mid 90s in a different event to mine. But for me, it was it was his approach to training, his commitment to every single session. And I watched a video. There's a documentary that's on YouTube about him and Chris Boardman, called The Contenders and Battle of the Bikes. And there's a scene there where he's he's just absolutely destroying himself on this old rusty static trainer in his backyard. And when you see somebody really digging deep and I saw him training once and just watched and just saw how much commitment he threw into every single session. It wasn't because it was a world title on the line. It was just a Wednesday afternoon. And this is how he trained every single day. And remember thinking, I'm not doing that yet, I need to switc that kind of mode in my head. And have that intensity in every single session.

Damian [00:12:50] So how old were you when...

Chris [00:12:51] I was about 18 or 19 or 19, 20 at that point and realised and this is how I need to train. So it takes time. You can't just do that overnight. But that was the moment I thought I need to start really committing. So at the heart of everything I did was every single effort of every single session count. So, you know, you get to the start line knowing there's nothing more that you could have done within your powers to be the best you can be, then you can accept the result.

You can shake the guy's hand if he beats you.

[00:13:16] But if you turn up at the start line, looking back, thinking, well, it was that session six months ago that I really chicken out of and it got really painful. You know, no one else knew. But I know that I didn't go 100 percent or there was a stag do I went on, you know, three months ago that I probably shouldn't have done and had a big night. And, you know, whatever. It's knowing there's nothing, you know, within your powers, if you can truly say that you have done everything you can possibly do, then you can relax in the day. It's a bit like studying for exams. If you've done the work, you can enjoy the experience and, you know, whatever happens, happens.

Damian [00:13:48] Well, can I ask you a question on that question for somebody listening to this that is having a bad day, you know, when they've come home after a long day at work and they're exhausted and they've got that choice of sitting on the sofa or going out for a run. How did you compel yourself to squeeze that drop out of that every drop?

Chris [00:14:06] I think it was knowing that literally every effort counts. And if you weren't training right now your rivals will be training.

Damian [00:14:12] Right.

Chris [00:14:12] I didn't see myself as having the same potential as other people. So I thought I have to work so much harder to get the result compared to, you know, I hate the word talent because it kind of gives the impression that you just turn up and you're good at whatever it is you do. When it doesn't matter who you are. You know, it could be Usain Bolt who still has to train like a demon to to meet those, to produce those performances. So I guess I felt like I always had to work harder than everybody else to get the results. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But that was the that was the belief I had.

Damian [00:14:42] Right.

Chris [00:14:43] And that pushed me on it. But I also I didn't enjoy the pain. I don't enjoy the actual moment of suffering through a session. But I enjoyed the feeling of getting through a day and feeling that taking a step towards that end goal. So I would have, every day I'd have a target. It wouldn't just be this great big target on the horizon in four years time. Every single day, I would have a plan. I would have targets within that session, knowing exactly what numbers I had to hit or, you know, that the kind of output I would have to produce to have a good session. Everything was measurable. And I'm quite scientific in the way I approach things. I like to have numbers and figures and data. So I would I would look at everything and I would, you know, I would plan it out beforehand and I would log it and then I would see that little step towards that end goal.

Jake [00:15:24] And once you were sort of opened up to this growth mindset of believing that it was within your grasp. No excuses. The opportunity is yours if you want to take it.   did you give up when training? When working?

Chris [00:15:36] Never. Never. Never.

Jake [00:15:38] But you were involved in British Cycling for, what, 16 years?

Chris [00:15:40] 16 years, yeah.

Jake [00:15:41] And you didn't once just go 'Nah, this is...'

Chris [00:15:43] No. No. There were points. So it becomes a point where you can push yourself too hard. You know, you could be like a racehorse. You just keep going and going until you fall down. Once you start having a coach around you. It takes time to begin to trust them and know that they have the right judgement. So when the coach says to you, right, I think you've done enough now, you know, you're you're clearly need a rest. The insticnt was always the push on 'nah, I'm fine. I'm fine.'

[00:16:07] And part of it was to prove that you could do it. And it was to show that you were strong and show to yourself as well, but you would never back down. It was always if you're not doing well, the solution was to train harder. Which is ridiculous, really. You know, it's great to have that mentality to push hard. But to me, it was learning the difference of learning when to push and when to rest. So the coaching staff really helped me. In later years they would say 'Right. You know, look at the numbers today. You're dropping off a cliff. The teams are getting slower and slower. There is no point in training when you're when you're this fatigued, you've got to rest.'

[00:16:38] And it took me years to get that point where I go, 'OK.' But I would never be the one to say 'I think I should stop now because I'm getting you know, the times aren't great or...

Damian [00:16:47] So how do you do that now then, Chris?

[00:16:49] So like, how do you know when to ease off a bit and give yourself...

Chris [00:16:55] Well I think now, it's just so different now. Because life went from being a single focus and everything else had to fit around or, you know, literally just didn't exist. So you didn't. Everything had to be about training and recovery and diet and competition. And now, it's about, I guess, enjoying variety and balance and having so many different things to do. But as Jake mentioned at the start, becoming a dad as well. When you become a parent, then shift becomes your kids and they are the centre of everything. And your work and your rest, your life, fits around that. So so now it's about, I guess, being efficient and how you do stuff, planning in advance, making sure that, well, if I want to do all these things, I've got to be sure that I can get from A to B to C to D in as easily as possible and and trying to fit it all in. But but equally, if you do too much, you become tired and rundown and you can't you can't do it all and you can't do it well. So I rather do less stuff but do it well than do too much and and do it half heartedly.

Jake [00:17:53] Can we talk about when your son Callum was born. Because you went from being an elite athlete, which I don't know, but I assume is quite a selfish life, right?

Chris [00:18:02] Yeah, absolutely.

Jake [00:18:02] It's all about you. Your training, your nutrition, your travel, your medals, your targets. And almost overnight you go and you see the doctor and they say, right, we need to get this baby out three months before your baby's due to be born. Your wife then became ill, your baby was ill, and suddenly you've gone from the most important person in your world to the least important person.

Chris [00:18:21] Yep.

Jake [00:18:21] Because it becomes about them. How was that mindset shift for you?

Chris [00:18:26] I guess it wasn't even a conscious thing, but you just like anything in life when really important stuff happens, you just deal with it. Obviously when you, Sarra was pregnant and, you know - fantastic. It was all going to be great. I hadn't even, you know, painted his, we didn't know whether it was going to be a boy or a girl. We had done anything yet. We was, you know, literally naively thinking, we've got lots of time. And then out of the blue, Sarra became unwell.

And Callum was born at 29 weeks. And I guess even before then, I guess life had shifted from being a selfish, focussed athlete a little bit. But that was a big step to suddenly, do you know what this little thing, who, he was two pounds when he's born - two pounds two ounces - he was tiny and he was in hospital for the first eight, nine weeks of his life. Perspective comes in. And Steve Peters, who was our psychologist in the team, used to talk about perspective a lot and used to try and, before a big event, you know, I mean, I was seeing Steve once a week before London. You know, people were quite surprised when they learnt how much time you spend with a psychologist. But psychology is like anything else in your overall training. You have to work on these techniques to become better at them. So for perspective, Steve would be saying things like "Do you know what, you're riding a bike in anticlockwise circles around the track, it's not it's not life and death here. You know, trying to get some perspective on what it is you do. You got to care, you gotta be passionate about it. But also learn that it is quite trivial."

[00:19:46] But when it comes to something that is life and death and that, you know, it is properly stressful. It's not easy.

Jake [00:19:51] But you'd also gone from control. Like the one thing you have when you're an athlete, you're in control of anything and now you have control of nothing at all, don't you.

Chris [00:19:59] Yeah. And you want answers, too. So, you know, you're used to looking at data, you're used to looking at stuff that is quite black and white. Yeah, the doctors can never give you any guarantees or they don't say, well, we just have to wait and see. And, you know, it takes time and it's and I guess as well as sitting and doing nothing, you've got very little control over the situation. You know, you just sit and watch this little baby in an incubator for hours a day and you

get to change his nappy, you know, and you get to take him out and do your bit of skin to skin. And that's it. But he's got tubes and wires and cables. And all sorts. And he's so fragile. You're terrified you're going to hurt him. So it's, it was without doubt the hardest period of our lives. And it wasn't like it just stopped. You know, it was a very gradual thing. Like, now, he's five and he's at school. And he's doing really well. But you still you know, you never then sort of stopped worrying. You worry about your kids regardless of what the situation is. But I guess going back to the point. Yeah, it's your whole world shifts and your perspective and your priorities change.

Damian [00:20:57] So what intrigues me, Chris, is that, like, even when you're talking there about becoming a dad, there's very much a sense of there's a plan, there's a meticulous process that you follow. When do you ever just let yourself not follow the process and just let life take you?

Chris [00:21:15] I guess that's what's kind of happened a lot more since I retired. And it was the biggest, most liberating feeling when you retire, for me certainly, was not worrying about how you're feeling. So every, like when you were training and competing, every day you wake up and your body's aching, you know. The only time you've don't ache is in the two weeks before competition, when you start to taper off and you're resting more because every other moment of the four year cycle, you are suppressed by this fatigue. You're training a body so hard you can't afford to be fresh all the time. You've got to work, work, work. So that period when you finish and it's this feeling of 'it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter.' You know...

Jake [00:21:55] Is it liberating or is it scary?

Chris [00:21:56] It's both because it, you know, liberating because you feel finally and you can just breathe our and go. You know what, and it makes it sound like I wasn't enjoying. I had an amazing career, amazing time. But there is, there's no denying, there's a lot of pressure and a lot of expectation which you put on yourself to do as well as you can. But then when you retire. I went to America shortly after I retired. And you've got to fill in the green card and name and address occupation. And the first time where you can go for 20 years I've written cyclist and all of a sudden it's like, well, who, what am I? You know what? How do you define yourself? You define yourself by what you do. And all of a sudden, you know, you're an ex-cyclist. That's what I used to do. That was the first moment I really had this, sort of deal with that. Well, you know, what is the future going to hold? What am I going to do? You know, I don't want to spend your whole life looking backwards and talking about the old days. And I realise the irony that we are doing that right now. But you want to have new challenges and new things to look forward to. So, yeah, it's you do have to stop and smell the roses every now and again. But equally, you want to keep moving on and having new challenges and new targets because that's what life's about.

Damian [00:23:02] So what would you write down today?

Chris [00:23:04] Today I would write. Company director, probably somehting dull like that.

Jake [00:23:10] Have you not taken though, everything you learned from British Cycling into being a company director. I mean, I'm interested to know what learnings there have been from your sporting career that has now turned your Hoy Bikes into such a success.

Chris [00:23:22] I think the key thing is I always used to look to the best guys to analyse their techniques and their training methods. And I guess business is no different. You look at what else is on the market, who's doing well, how are they doing it? Learning from the best, I think, is a good starting point. But also realising that you're starting a whole, you're on the bottom rung of a whole new ladder. You can't expect it come straight and in the middle of the top. But with that it's quite exciting. I think, you know, you've been doing something at the very top level, but with minimal headroom for improvement for so long. You're looking at the tiniest fractions. Whereas every time you do something new, you take big steps. You're on that steep part of the learning curve. And it's quite, quite a fun part of the journey.

Jake [00:24:03] I think the one word that springs to mind when we talk about your entire career from starting out now running businesses is courage. Because I think you really have to have courage to put yourself into that British Cycling setup. You've got to have courage to try and be one of the leaders in there. You've got to have courage when you're on the start line. Courage

when you retire. Courage when your child and wife are both seriously ill. And then when you've done all that, where you could just chill out and see in your garden all day, you then have to have courage again to go 'Right. I'm going to set up a bike company. Not only that, I'm gonna be courageous enough to put my name to it so that if it doesn't work out and is a failure, it's crystal clear who's had this failure.

Chris [00:24:40] Hadn't considered that. Thanks. Jake [00:24:41] Listen it's going well, so you're okay. Chris [00:24:44] Yeah.

Jake [00:24:45] Do you feel like a courageous person. Does that ring a bell?

Chris [00:24:48] There's times when you do. There's times when you walk onto the track. Like potentially things like the sprint or the keirin as an event that are really gladiatorial. There's there's just this, you're stepping up and you're either going to win or you're going to lose in a sprint scenario. There's two of you. It's very man on man. Toe to toe kind of thing. And you've got to go in there with the kind of fighting spirit and you've got to have courage, because if you don't, they'll dominate the race and you'll lose. So there were moments where I remember thinking, like London rolling up on the start line on the keirin final it was like 'Phew! There's a lot of expectation here. This is this is a big moment.' But realising that, d'you know what, I'm so lucky to have this chance, because you can either look at it as a burden and a pressure and the weight of the world on your shoulders or you can go, 'This is amazing!' You know, this is an Olympic Games - Olympic Games Final. The crowd are all, 90 percent of the crowd are cheering for me. This is something that not many athletes ever get a chance to do. So make the most of it.'

Jake [00:25:45] You had that clarity did you?

Chris [00:25:46] Only with a lot of work. It didn't come, you know, instantly or easily. It was with Steve Peters, with the work I was doing with him. It was about having perspective and understanding how your brain is going to try and, you know, jeopardise everything. It's going to try and jump into the fight or flight mode. It's going to try and become emotional. It's going to try to react to things around you. But if you expect these things and you have a plan for what you want to think about and how you can control them, then you'll give yourself the best chance of performing well. But it wasn't, wasn't like we were walking around robots the whole time. It was the ability to to switch. If you lost focus to switch back into focus and you were doing that hundreds of times a day. Maybe thousands of times a day.

[00:26:25] You would talk through scenarios of stressful environments and racing. What could happen? What might happen, you know, how would you deal with that? How would you address these worries or concerns with logic? And the trouble is, you don't have these big pressurised moments every day. So you can't go out and just practise them willy nilly. You've got to use them on things like, you know, if you're driving the car and someone cuts you up, not reacting to that. Understanding, what benefit is there going to be from blowing the horn or shouting or chasing after them? And often these are the things you would use to try and use these little annoying parts of the day to test your control and your ability to focus and not get emotional.

Damian [00:27:02] It strikes me that Jake's theme about courage, that he attributed to you before, Chris, that it was courageous to go and seek Steve out. It sounds courageous that you kept going and recognised that it was a process. How rare was that? The willingness to work on the psychological side as well as the physical and the tactical?

Chris [00:27:21] Yeah, it was really, when Steve joined the team in 2002 or 2003, nobody, like he just sat in his office and no one was knocking on his door.

[00:27:29] It took Jason Queally to go and start seeing him, who was seen as a senior member of the team, one of our kind of main guys. And Jason came back and was saying 'That was really interesting. He's a fascinating guy, you know.' What did you do? You know, where you lying on a sofa talking about your childhood and stuff? 'No we just sat and had a chat.'

[00:27:49] And back in those days, the notion of a psychologist, it was almost a sign of weakness to go and see a psychologist. It was it was a bit taboo back then. And that's, what, fifteen, sixteen years ago. And you think how much it's changed now. But it took time. And I think with Steve.

Yeah, it was because other riders were going to see him that I thought, well, maybe I will go and see him and have a chat.

[00:28:13] And he actually came to me, it was in 2004, it was the first time really he sort of engage or we engaged together. He came to see me at the Celtic Manor we were three weeks before the Olympics in Athens.

Damian [00:28:25] Right.

Chris [00:28:26] And he said, 'have you got time for a quick chat?'

[00:28:27] And I was like, 'yeah, yeah course.' You know, sat down and had a coffee.

Jake [00:28:30] What were you thinking at that point?

Chris [00:28:31] Well, I was thinking, this is a bit weird, but I thought maybe he was just, you know, just doing the rounds to check everyone was okay. And he said, you know, 'how are things going?'

[00:28:39] And I said, 'it's going really well, you know, brilliant. Injury free form's good. I regained my world title this year. So, you know, I'm gonna be startin number one seed at Olympics in three weeks time. Dead happy. You know, ready to go for it.'

[00:28:54] He said 'that's brilliant. Really pleased that you've turned it around this year. It's going well.'

[00:28:58] And then he said, 'I just want to pause one scenario to you. What are you going to do if somebody breaks the world record right before you get on the track?'

[00:29:05] And the event, I was doing the kilo. You're against the clock. One by one and I would be last to go because I would see all my rivals post their times.

[00:29:12] And I said, 'well, I just wouldn't think about it.'

[00:29:16] And he said, 'well, if I say to you right now, don't think about a pink elephant. What is the first thing that pops into your head?'

[00:29:22] And this pink elephant popped into my head. And I thought right well he's got my attention. He's doing some sort of mind control technique on me. I said, all right, well, what what what should I do then? If I shouldn't not think about it.

[00:29:33] He said, 'well, you can't not think about something. You have to you know, you can only think about one thing at any one time. And if you say don't think about something, you get drawn towards it. So you have to actively choose what you want to think about. And that will displace any other thoughts.'

[00:29:47] Cognitive displacement? I think it's called.

[00:29:50] So he said, 'you know what I would like you to do between now and the games in the next three weeks. Every time you get anxious or stressed about anything. It doesn't have to be about the cycling, I want you to visualise the race. This one kilo time trial. From your perspective, in real time, from start to finish. So it takes about a minute. Just visualise yourself doing the perfect performance. That perfect ride.

Chris [00:30:14] I was like, alright. That's nothing new. Visualisations, nothing that's groundbreaking. Went back to the room, logged onto the Internet, and it was cycling news Web

site. One of my rivals had posted some great time, you know, in training. And I suddenly thought, oh, God, he's gone really well. And he's going to be flying in three weeks. I then thought, wait a minute don't engage with this negative thought. Let's just shut my eyes, visualise, you know, rehearse this race. And at the end of the minute, I was like I feel alright. And just moved on. And then as the days went on, as I got closer to the games before we got out to Athens, it was just getting more and more and more doing this more more times. And then on the night itself, it was just this almost constant loop of, you know, visualising this race because there's so much stress and so much stuff happening around you. So it doesn't allow if you are constantly choosing what you're thinking about, the negative, anxious thoughts don't have an in. They can't get in. And then as if he had a crystal ball, four riders to go, Shane Kelly stepped up and broke the world record and again I used the technique to push that out. The next guy, Stefan Nimke, same again went even faster. And then as I'm sitting about to get on the bike, one rider to go, Arnaud Tournant, went even quicker. New Olympic record, new world record, all that stuff. But it was having that technique and having that ability to say, d' you know what? It doesn't matter what. Just keep going. Just hang on to this one thing. This is your lifeline grip onto this. Don't allow the panic to set in. You know, it was just that in terms of pressure, in terms of the script, the way it was, you know, leading towards that final raid. Normally, I think that would've been too much and I'd have been distracted and panicking about what they were doing. But I managed to focus on myself.

Jake [00:31:48] You know, I think is great about this is that there are people listening to this going, well, that's brilliant advice, but I'm not a professional cyclist, so no use to me, is it? But actually, we now live in a world where particularly with social media, what do we do all the time? Compare ourselves to everybody else. What should we then be doing? Pushing that aside and focussing on ourselves.

[00:32:06] And whether it's your wife going 'oh look at the lovely life my friends are living on Instagram or your kids coming home from school going, I mean, my daughter does dance and someone got a gold and she got silver and that really bothered her an amount of time. This is the kind of advice that no matter who you are, whatever your walk of life, using that technique suddenly puts you back in control. And I think to own your own thoughts means you're owning your own actions, right?

Chris [00:32:30] Yeah, absolutely. I think understanding what you have control over in life is a big, important step to kind of overcome. And once you realise that there's so many things you can't control, there's so many things that, why worry about stuff that you literally cannot control. Focus on what you can do. It's all about just, you know, accepting responsibility for your own performance, not making excuses. And if you do lose, you say, 'I'm gonna come back, stronger next time. Well done to him he's done really well. Enjoy the moment.' But I will be back.

Damian [00:32:58] So as a father, wow early have you started teaching these lessons to him?

Chris [00:33:04] I don't know if I have. The but the day's so busy. Getting him to school and getting back and get the dinner in them and getting to bed. Yeah. I don't know. I think subconsciously I hope these messages are coming through.

Jake [00:33:16] I mean, you must be saying to him that's not your fault, mate. But it's your responsibility to deal with it.

Chris [00:33:22] Yeah, well, it's I don't know. I guess it's it's not about sport. It's not. It's just his life, isn't it? It's about trying to bring your kids up in a way that you hope they're equipped to deal with stuff and make their own decisions. And and you worry about doing too much for them. Or not good enough for them. And, you know. There's so much pressure and parents to do the right thing. And everywhere there's information and everywhere people are doing things differently. And again, like social media, like you were saying before, you can you can beat yourself up and you can be like a deer in the headlights worrying about all these different options of what should I be doing. I guess at some point you've got to just choose your path, stick to it, commit to it and do the best you can.

Jake [00:33:58] What was the information or the advice that Steve gave you about dealing with setbacks in your career? So whether it's when you were brilliant at the kilo and they just took it

away from the Olympics and you had to refocus, or when you had injuries or accidents and you were off the bike for a period of time and you saw all your team-mates improving and improving and your you're unable to compete.

Chris [00:34:18] Setbacks, I guess it comes back to dealing with what you have control over.

[00:34:22] So it's, it's having patience. It's having, resetting your goals. For injuries, it's the most frustrating thing in sport, I think, for any athlete, an injury. Because all you want to do is train. Your default setting is to push on, to do more, to train harder. And when you can't, it's just that you're you know, you're you're kind of in a situation where your frustration is building. You haven't and you don't realise how much physical activity it can affect your mental state as well. And you miss that daily endorphin release. You miss that activity. For me, when I was injured, I was very lucky. I really only had one period when it was a really bad, proper, you know, lay off the bike. You know, 10 weeks, of doing nothing at all. The rest of the time, the injuries were all ones you're managing. You know, you're going to see the physio every day, but you could still modify your training. But I guess setbacks were resetting your goals, you know, looking at where are you now. Learn from mistakes. It's a cliche to so you learn more from your mistakes than your victories. But I truly believe that's the case.

Jake [00:35:18] People trying to avoid failure.

Chris [00:35:20] Yeah, they do. They don't...

Jake [00:35:21] Did you have to seek it when you have a meeting?

Chris [00:35:22] No. I think failure comes to you eventually. Doesn't matter what you're doing. You know, it's I guess. I never believed that I was invincible. Some athletes did. And as Steve Peters used to say, the Father Christmas syndrome. You know, once you realise he doesn't exist, you can't then go back to believing in him. And if you believe you're invincible and that's your whole mindset. And then you lose, all you gotta do is lose one race. And once you've lost that one race, that whole mindset, that whole belief system has gone. Failure for me. Once you've got, what you see is a winning formula. You can be frightened to change and to make any changes. And certainly after 2002, when I won the Commonwealth Games and the World's, I had a fantastic season, a real breakthrough season. I thought I've cracked it. I thought this is the formula is what I need to do. If I train this way again, if I eat this way again, if I rest this way again, this will produce the winning medal next year. But all that happens is you raise the bar and then all the guys that are behind you, they're chasing after you. And they raise the bar for others. You've got to continuously improve yourself. And by doing that, you have to change just not everything. You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. But you make little changes to the things that can be improved and you keep the things that are really structural, you know, important to the overall thing.

Damian [00:36:35] What intrigues me towards the latter end of your career, Chris, is that if you go back to the way you describe those early days where you had frames of reference; you had Jason Queally setting an example. You had Graeme Obree but you could see the work ethic that has gone on there. When you started getting into the territory of being a multiple Olympic champion, where were your frames of reference to dictate? How do you behave? How do you conduct yourself?

Chris [00:37:03] In terms of behaviour and conducting yourself, I think it was, I don't know. I guess it is what you instinctively feel is is right for yourself. Without doubt, yhe hardest four years my career was from post Beijing to London, because no matter what you can tell yourself, at the time I was 32 in Beijing, 36 in London. That was, you know, very much at the back end of my career. No other athlete had won a gold medal in a sprint event, individual sprint event after the age of 30 and I was 36 going into into London. So I kept saying, you know, it doesn't matter, you know, as long as I keep performing, it's great. But I was noticing that my recovery wasn't as great as it had been so I could still put out one off efforts that were as good or better than I've ever done before. But it took me a long time to get over that. Yeah, I think towards the end of my career, you start to become a bit more reflective. And I think you try and draw on everything you've learnt in your early years and bring it together. And physically you might be starting to

plateau or even drop off. But you all the experience is all the knowledge, understanding your body, when to rest, when to train, how to deal with the pressure, knowing that when you get on the start line, you've been there before. You draw upon these experiences and they help you. So whilst certain things are dropping off, other things are gaining and you're getting getting better at it.

Jake [00:38:22] Your big moment was being on the start line, and obviously you had World's and Euro's and things, but the Olympics was what your sport really was all about. It was built around the Olympics. So effectively four years of training and creating and developing and getting better for the Olympic Games. Now, most people listening to this won't compete in an Olympic Games, but they will still have things that they build up to and they have to deliver on the day. So can you talk us through your mindset on the day of an Olympic final and what what you're thinking as you're sitting on the start line? I mean, as you just said, you're pushing everything else away, apart from the race itself. What is the process of making sure that four years of effort is not thrown away in 60 seconds?

Chris [00:39:00] I guess the point is that you you can't magic a performance out of nowhere. It's not that, you know, you can go and see a psychologist and they will give you the tools to sort of produce something that you could never have done before on the day. But what tends to happen is people underperform. So you you get to the big, big occasion and the stress gets to you. You get distracted, you change your game plan, for whatever reason, you underperform. So the key is it's just about having the tools to do what you know you can do, but do it under the most extreme pressure of situations.

Jake [00:39:29] We've got some quickfire questions that we like to finish with. So three non- negotiable behaviours that you and the people around you have to buy into.

Chris [00:39:38] Timekeeping.

[00:39:39] I lost my temper a few times with certain athletes.

Jake [00:39:41] Why did that bother you so much?

[00:39:43] Because I think it's a sign of lack of respect for, if you're in a group environment and you know, everybody's focussed on their own individual goal, you're part of a team. If you're the one that turns up and holds a whole group back and you've got your training plan and you've got everything structured and they turn up late and you can't leave. I'm talking about training camps or in certain situations, then it throws everybody else's plans out. So for me, timekeeping was was absolutely crucial.

[00:40:07] You can't refract yourself in the third person.

Jake [00:40:10] Even if you're a Sir?

Chris [00:40:12] Nothing annoys me more than athletes talking about themselves in the third person. Yes. It's the most pretentious, arrogant. It's just such a really weird thing to start talking about.

Damian [00:40:21] Damian Hughes agrees with that point, Chris.

Chris [00:40:25] It was after Beijing and I got interviewed by one of the Scottish journalists and he'd been in a press conference with Michael Phelps. And Michael Phelps had said, one of the American journalists said 'a lot people have been given their opinion on Michael Phelps over the last 24 years. But what does Michael Phelps think about Michael Phelps?'

[00:40:42] And Michael Phelps started referring to Michael Phelps in the third person. So this journalist asked me the same question. But for me, thinking this will be an interesting one. And I said, 'I think the day Chris Hoy refers to Chris Hoy, in the third person is the day Chris Hoy disappears up his own arse!'

[00:40:56] And they were like...

[00:40:59] So final behaviour, I think excuses.

[00:41:02] You can't make excuses. You've got to take responsibility, not refer to yourself in the third person and turn up on time.

Damian [00:41:09] So the next one then, Chris. What advice would you give the teenage Chris, that's just starting out on this journey?

Chris [00:41:14] Believe in yourself. And don't underestimate what you can do. We all have the power to do amazing things. If you apply yourself, if you find someone you really care about and you really enjoy and you commit to it, you will amaze yourself at what's possible.

[00:41:28] And it's not just I've had that experience. So I think that's possible. I've seen it in so many other people, not just in sport, in all different forms of life.

Jake [00:41:35] You spent your life working with a sports psychologist, Steve Peters. What is the one piece of learning or the one thing you picked up from him that you think everyone should hear and everyone should know?

Chris [00:41:46] I guess perspective in life. You know, he talks about and when you're if you imagine yourself on your deathbed and your grandkids are coming to see you and they're saying 'what is important in life?' You're not going to say to them 'it's important to race bikes as far as you can the track or is important to lots of money or it's important to be really good at something.'

[00:42:08] He said you you've got to enjoy yourself. You got to enjoy doing. You have a passion out there and be the best you can be. But, you know, priorities in life and understanding that, you know, these are all fairly trivial things. Unless you're saving lives then most of what we do is pretty trivial.

Damian [00:42:25] So how important is legacy to them, Chris?

Chris [00:42:28] I guess to know that you have the respect of your your team-mates, but also your rivals too. You know, when you retire and you can let the guard down, you can let the mask down, if you like, when you meet your rivals who've retired or maybe still racing, but you're no longer competing with them. Yeah, I love that sense of, you know, you've been through a journey either with somebody or against somebody, but you come at the other end and you can be mates and friends and still have that mutual respect. So, yeah, I guess it's people at the end of the day it's friendships. It's relationships. That's that's what's really important.

Jake [00:43:01] I love that. I think there's a perfect way to finish. There'll be people listening to this who are constantly chasing perfection and chasing success, I think to finish on the message that actually it just comes down to people at the end of the day and living a life that you can be proud of for all the right reasons. Is is the perfect way to end. Thank you so much for your time.

Chris [00:43:17] Thank you. It's been great fun.

Damian [00:43:18] Thanks, Chris. Yes.

Jake [00:43:25] Damien.

Damian [00:43:25] Jake.

Jake [00:43:25] You know what stands out for me, there's two things from from that conversation. Is, the first one, about responsibility. He's a guy who was almost taught how to take absolute responsibility for everything. Wasn't he? Zero excuses.

Damian [00:43:41] Yeah. I love that idea that that was what he said then. And there was a no excuses culture in his whole life. And, you know, while we spoke about getting frustrated, and seeing athletes make excuses after performance, you win or you lose. But you own your performance.

Jake [00:43:55] And also how mental control became something that he was so comfortable with. He talks about it. So off the cuff, he's like, well, 'I was on the, you know, the start gate for an Olympic Final. And the three previous people before me had broken world records. So I had to put that out of my mind and focus on my own performance.'

[00:44:11] Right. You can't just say it like that. That is surely one of the hardest psychologically, one of the hardest things to do. But he'd trained himself so much that he could be in that hugely high pressure situation, four years of work behind him. He was able just to remove from his head three things that would that would disable most people in that moment.

Damian [00:44:33] But the significant thing for me, Jake, was the fact that it spoke about investing the time to go and practise that as a skill. He described it as a skill. It wasn't something that you either blessed with or you're not. He spoke about the idea of he went along and sought psychological help and didn't see as something's broken. He saw it as how could enhance what he already had.

Jake [00:44:54] If ever you wanted to hear someone talk about the fact that there's no secrets to life apart from self belief, hard work and kind of going for it, then that is the conversation to listen to, isn't it?

Damian [00:45:04] Textbook. Textbook. And I think anybody listening to this particular podcast. I think it's the kind of thing that you'd want your children to listen to and give them that same understanding.