Hoy ready for track return at British nationals

Some 14 months after his super-successful Olympic Games campaign Chris Hoy is preparing to get back to racing at this month’s British Track Championships. Since suffering a hip injury in February, the triple Olympic gold medal winner has spent time working on his autobiography which will be released.

"Technically and tactically I'll be a little bit rusty, which is only to be expected when you haven't raced for a long time," Hoy told The Guardian.

"You need to sharpen up your skills, and you can only really do that in competition. But in terms of speed and physical power, I'm really happy with the way things have gone."

Hoy plans to contest the national championships at Manchester Velodrome, from October 20-24, before contesting the venue’s World Cup round a week later. The return to racing is welcomed by Hoy, who has endured huge media commitments since Beijing’s Olympics and also received a knighthood.

Hoy says the combination of watching aged athletes claim gold in Beijing and his accident earlier this year have motivated him to continue his career. The Scotsman’s returning to the track this month already thinking ahead to his home Olympic Games in 2012.

“It was a big crash and the older you get, the more you question how you will recover from it,” Hoy told TimesOnline.co.uk. “But this has shown me I still have the same desire, the same motivation. I’m enjoying my cycling again and when I’m enjoying it, I perform well.

“I don’t feel I have peaked. If I thought that, I wouldn’t keep going. Technically, tactically, there is no question I have room for improvement and we’re always looking for ways to tweak the training programmes.”

Hoy’s biography is released in the United Kingdom, or online via Amazon, on October 15. The book will be available in Australia in December. Chris Hoy: The Autobiography is published by HarperSport, £18.99