'Worst crash I’ve ever had': Sir Chris Hoy breaks leg in mountain bike accident

Hoy - a six-time Olympic cycling champion - is battling terminal prostrate cancer but after entering “a stability period” in his treatment. As a result, the 49-year-old from Edinburgh has been able to ride his mountain bike recreationally - although he is now facing a spell on the sidelines after “smashing his leg up”.

Hoy said: “I’ve smashed my leg up on the mountain bike, that’s the worst thing that’s happened recently. You just don’t bounce like you do when you’re younger. It was a big one, but I’m better now. I’m still on crutches, hobbling about.

“Worse things happen. I’ve been riding bikes for 43 years and it’s the worst crash I’ve ever hard. I’m pretty lucky that’s the worst one I’ve had in all those years of riding.”

Hoy is Britain’s second most decorated Olympian behind his former team-mate Sir Jason Kenny. He announced in February 2024 he was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer and in October that year he revealed doctors had given him between two and four years to live.

“Once you’ve got past the diagnosis, which for me was over two years ago, now the first part of that is pretty grim and then you start treatment,” Hoy said. “Then, if you’re lucky like me, you respond to the treatment and then you enter a period of kind of stability.

“It’s not completely stable, there’s times where it comes back and then you have to change treatment, but the fortunate thing for me in my situation, there are a number of different treatments out there, as there are for any men with prostate cancer.”