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Cycling (keirin, individual sprint, team sprint)

Born: 23/03/76

Career highlights

In 2008, Hoy became the first Briton for a century to win three gold medals at one Olympics, and he now boasts four Olympic and 11 world titles.

He won his first world title (the time trial in 2002) by one-thousandth of a second. He was voted the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sports Personality of the Year in 2008 and was knighted in the 2009 New Year Honours list.

Career background

As a child, he wanted to be captain of the Scotland rugby team. He first got into cycling through the film ET: "I saw ET and became hooked on the BMX craze." He raced BMX until he was 14, becoming Scottish champion and reaching ninth in the world rankings.

The 1km time trial, the event in which he won Olympic gold in 2004, was scrapped from the 2008 Games, so Hoy had to turn his focus to the keirin and the sprint.

Did you know?

In July 2010, he became the first person to ride round London's Olympic velodrome - he said it gave him "goose bumps". The velodrome being built for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow will be named after him.