Sir Chris Hoy has given an update on his condition saying he’s ‘doing well’ with ‘improving’ fitness levels.
The Olympic champion who is battling terminal prostate cancer said he is acutely aware the illness will not disappear all of a sudden.
But post chemotherapy he has been able to work on his physical fitness and is feeling better for it.
He said he has refused to ‘google’ his condition but asked a friend to find out who has survived stage four cancer the longest.
There were two men who were still alive 20 odd years after their diagnosis.
However, the father-of-two told the Times: ‘I’m not saying that I’m going to be that person, but once you know something is possible, it’s a way of finding your own hope.’
The cyclist who won six Olympic gold medals during his illustrious career revealed his cancer diagnosis last year.
Since then the 49-year-old has put his energies into raising awareness and funds for research and is currently preparing for his ‘Tour de 4’ mass-participation event in Glasgow in September.
Sarra Kemp and Sir Chris Hoy during celebrations for Commonwealth day at Westminster Abbey earlier this year
Sir Chris during the medal ceremony for the Mens Keirin Track Cycling Final at the London 2012 Olympic Games
He said: ‘A lot of people don’t really know what stage four means.
‘With stage one, two, three, there’s a possibility you can be cured completely. Stage four, you can’t. Stage four essentially means you’re never going to get rid of it. It will always come back at some point; it is a terminal diagnosis.’
Sir Chris struggled to describe the impact of the stage four diagnosis and admitted: ‘It takes away all the hope, because if you’ve got stage one, two or three there’s always hope that actually you can beat this.’
But instead of dwelling on it he decided to live his life pointing out ‘a lot of people are living with stage four’.
After doctors discovered his cancer had spread, the athlete was given between two and four years.
However, he said after gruelling treatment he is doing physically well adding: ‘I’ve been able to get fitter in the last 18 months; post-chemo I’ve been able to improve.’
He told the newspaper: ‘Cancer has taught me to try to not worry about the future.
‘When you feel fear or stress, it’s all about trying to predict the future, and you may be wasting time worrying about the wrong thing entirely and it’s only going to spoil your life at the moment.’
And he concluded that ‘I’m not lying when I say I’m doing well’.
Sir Chris, who also is an 11-time world champion, retired from cycling in 2013 and has been a regular pundit and commentator for the BBC.
He first announced he’d been treated for cancer in February last year but in October said the condition was terminal to a huge outpour of sympathy.
It also emerged his wife, Lady Sarra Hoy, has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis.
The couple’s two children, Callum, who was born in 2014, and Chloe, born in 2017.
Following his diagnosis, Sir Chris wrote his ‘uplifting and inspirational’ autobiography, Sir Chris Hoy - All that matters which became an immediate bestseller.