JOIN USSix-times Olympic champion Chris Hoy, who spearheaded a golden period of British track cycling dominance, announced his retirement on Thursday content that he had nothing left to prove after a long and stellar career.
Britain’s most successful Olympian, who won two golds at the 2012 London Games to add to three from Beijing four years earlier and his first in Athens in 2004, said the time was right to quit the saddle having exhausted “every last ounce of effort and energy.”
“I am officially announcing my retirement. It was not a decision I took easily or lightly, but I know it’s the right decision,” Hoy told a news conference in Edinburgh.
The 37-year-old had been deliberating for months whether to compete in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in his native Scotland, and in the velodrome named after him, but said it would be one championship too far.
“Nothing would give me more pleasure than going to Glasgow, but I don't want to be there for the numbers.
“I feel I have got every last ounce of effort and energy out of myself. I made it to London and I was successful but maybe people don’t realise just how much that took out of me.
“Trying to go on for another year would have been too much and I didn't want to just turn up and wave to the crowd and get the tracksuit.”
Hoy won his first Olympic gold in the 1-km time trial at the Athens Games and followed up by winning the team sprint, keirin and sprint in Beijing, the first Briton since 1908 to win three gold at one Games.
Last year in London he secured two more golds in the team sprint, helping clock a world record time, and keirin to overtake rower Steve Redgrave as the Briton with the most gold medals.