British Olympian Sir Chris Hoy recently revealed his diagnosis with terminal cancer as his wife continues her own battle with multiple sclerosis.
“Once it’s said, you can’t go back. You can’t unsay it,” Hoy, 48, told U.K.’s The Times in an interview published on Saturday, October 19, sharing his fate with the world. The profile revealed that Hoy has been documenting his experience over the past year for a forthcoming memoir titled All That Matters: My Toughest Race Yet, set to be released next month.
“There’s so much positivity that can come out of this from all angles,” he told The Times. “I’m just really excited that this book hopefully will be able to help people.”
Hoy shared his illness publicly in a February social media post — but he’s since confirmed that the cancer has metastasized to his bones. Hoy was told that he had two to four years to live when initially receiving the diagnosis late last year.
Hoy’s cancer journey started in September 2023, when he had pain in his shoulder. “I’m just getting a bit old for lifting heavy weights,” he remembered thinking. The doctor revealed that there was a tumor in his shoulder. A second scan showed tumors in his pelvis, hip, spine and rib as well.
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“And just like that,” he wrote, per The Times. “I learn how I will die.”
Hoy is the most decorated Olympic cyclist of all time with a total of seven Olympic medals — six gold and one silver. He announced his retirement from the sport in April 2023, months before receiving his cancer diagnosis.
Hoy’s wife, Sarra, was battling her own health journey amid her husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis. She was diagnosed with “very active and aggressive” MS in November 2023 but didn’t tell her husband until the following month. (Hoy and Serra have been married since 2010. They share kids, Callum, 9, and Chloe, 6.)
“It’s the closest I’ve come to, like, you know, why me? Just, what? What’s going on here? It didn’t seem real,” Hoy recalled. “It was such a huge blow, when you’re already reeling. You think nothing could possibly get worse. You literally feel like you’re at rock bottom, and you find out, oh no, you’ve got further to fall. It was brutal.”
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However, both Hoy and his wife decided to stay positive amid their health struggles.
“She says all the time, ‘How lucky are we? We both have incurable illnesses for which there is some treatment. Not every disease has that. It could be a lot worse,’” he said, noting that their kids don’t know about Serra’s MS. “A lot will hear it for the first time from this interview.”
Hoy explained that “changing the perception of stage 4” is his overall goal. “Stage 4’s not just, right, this is the end of your life. There’s more to be lived.”
