Chris Hoy announces terminal cancer diagnosis

Chris Hoy has announced that his cancer is terminal.

The six-time Olympic track cycling champion revealed that he has between two and four years to live in an interview with the Sunday Times.

Back in February, Hoy announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer last year and was undergoing treatment including chemotherapy.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Hoy said that he has known about the terminal diagnosis for a year. He revealed that he felt a strain in his shoulder last September, which, following a scan, a doctor informed him was caused by a tumour.

Further scans found cancer in his prostate which had metastasised to his bones, with tumours also found in his pelvis, hip, spine and ribs, reported the Sunday Times.

"And just like that. I learn how I will die," Hoy wrote, according to the interview.

Hoy, 48, won six Olympic gold medals across the 2004, 2008 and 2012 games, with titles coming in the 1km time trial, team sprint, keirin, and individual sprint.

Those medals mean he ranks among the greatest British Olympians, his six golds one short of fellow track star Jason Kenny. He also counts 11 world titles to his name between 2002 and 2012 in the same track disciplines.

Hoy, who has been working on a memoir – All That Matters: My Toughest Race Yet – in the past year, revealed that he's been undergoing chemotherapy since November. He said that he only made his terminal diagnosis public following a phone call from a journalist who asked whether he had a "terminal illness".

"It was very frustrating," Hoy said. "It would have happened at some point. And there was a relief with it. It was awful, because that Pandora's box is opened and you can't shut it. But it was like a pressure release.

"As unnatural as it feels, this is nature. You know, we were all born and we all die, and this is just part of the process," Hoy said, before acknowledging that he at least has the chance to say goodbye to his loved ones, noting that some have "no chance to say goodbyes or make peace with everything. But I've been given enough time."

Hoy said that he's now putting his energy into creating an annual 'Tour de 4' charity fundraising bike ride in order to change the perception of stage 4 cancer diagnoses, to show that, "stage 4's not just, right, this is the end of your life. There's more to be lived."