Top 107 Quotes & Sayings by Chris Hoy - Page 2

Well, having a pint is not going to stop you from winning a gold medal, but for me the question was 'is this going to help me win a gold medal?' if the answer was no, I'd cut it.

My big travel bugbear is Manchester Airport because getting through Terminal Three, as I have to do quite a lot, is a nightmare.

As an elite athlete, I trained to win. Training was at times brutal - it has to be when you want to represent your country and to be the world's best.

My advice is before a big ride, eat a meal 2 hours or so before, to allow you to digest and process it, and without being crude, try to get to the toilet before.

I've said numerous times how proud I am to be Scottish and how proud I have been to compete for Britain, too, and I don't think these two things necessarily have to be mutually exclusive.

Thai food became one of my favorite types of food, it's so delicious, and when you finish a meal it's a double whammy; it tasted great and was pretty healthy.

I have had an amazing life traveling the world and competing, doing what I love.

I was trying to break world records in cycling.

Investment is crucial but it's just the start. You look at some of the nations that have massive budgets but don't perform, then there are smaller nations who don't have massive budgets and can still get a reasonable medal count.

You know how hard you work. You know what you put into it. You want to win more than anything else. So the disappointment at the end is not because of anything other than being frustrated with yourself.

As a sprinter, body weight was never an issue for me, not like the long distance riders who have to be so careful.

The Tour de France is a different kettle of fish to what I do, but it doesn't matter what you do - if you're on two wheels you do the best you can and do it clean.

I've been to Florida, Texas and California in the States, but New York is the place I really want to visit.

I'm a bit rubbish at everything apart from cycling.

It is an important competition and I certainly rate my gold medals at the Commonwealth Games right up there with my world titles and my Olympic titles.

The Manchester games in 2002 was the breakthrough for me because I won my first individual Gold medal and that gave me the confidence to maybe think I could be a world beater.

For Le Mans, you still have to keep fit, it's endurance. It's a different type of fitness. You want to actually fit in the car - the seats are ridiculously small.

I just hope I can inspire young people and get more people into cycling.

I've become Olympic champion six times and I've never taken a performance-enhancing drug in my life, but I was lucky in that I never even had the choice. I never had pressure and I never had a person come to me saying, 'You should do this.'

There are days when we will all feel a bit down but that doesn't mean you have bad mental health. Recognizing this and being able to chat to others about your feelings is key.

I'm not saying having one pint will stop you from winning but you don't want to finish a race disappointed with your performance and then remember that beer you had one day.

I loved going to our winter training camps in Perth, Western Australia, when I was competing as a cyclist.

A lot of my training focused not just on the exercise but my diet.

Kuala Lumpur was my first ever multi-sports games. I didn't do very well but the experience and enjoyment I had of those games really made me realize how much work I had to do and inspired me to work harder for the Sydney Olympics.

Certainly for me the Commonwealth Games were fantastic to compete in and I genuinely have so many great memories of the three I went to.

My predictable stable routine completely changed once I retired. I went from a regimented and vigorous daily training program to a routine where every day was different.

I am sure in the long run cycling will continue to grow and flourish - not just in the U.K. but all around the world.

I'm writing kid's books, I'm doing endurance racing with Le Mans and designing bikes. I've also got my own range of cycling clothing.

Whether you are aware of it or not, if you eat right then you are giving yourself the best chance of defending against illness.

After the Olympics I was going to a lot of functions and found that if I was eating badly my energy levels dropped.

As a sports person there is definitely a responsibility to be a good role model.

Getting fit and eating well doesn't always seem easy. But at the end of day when you start to see a difference, you will feel a sense of achievement and accomplishment.

If you stop and think about it before you compete, you would freeze. If you think about the millions of people watching, the expectation, the consequences of winning, of losing, it's a massive moment in your life.

If you adapt your diet and exercise regime gradually you can keep it up long term. Often people begin with a big push and burn out quickly. Don't suddenly go mad a week before your holiday. Start early and build up slowly: you'll feel the benefits much more.

It sounds so innocuous but the difference between 99 percent and 100 percent is huge. You can finish at 99 percent and you'll be hurting but if you push a tiny bit more - and that's the bit that makes the difference to your training - your legs just grind to a halt. It's like your engine is seizing up.

I'm lucky not to have suffered any severe problems with my mental health but there have been lows, like when Callum was born prematurely and had to spend so much time in hospital.

If you don't have a massage therapist on hand, then a foam roller can do the work instead.

It doesn't matter what your target is, write down your goal and then plan how you are going to achieve it.

If I don't do anything for two or three days in a row, I feel really grumpy. My mood changes.

I worked closely with Steve Peters, the British Cycling team's psychologist, and we came up with a strategy of dealing with the pressure. It basically involved displacing the negative thoughts with visualisation. Not a complicated technique, but very effective if done properly. I just kept running through the race in my head over and over so that I wouldn't let the distractions around me put me off.

Even when you feel as though everything is 100% it can still go wrong on the night (like in Melbourne!) so you never know for sure that you're going to do the performance you expect.

I don't tend to listen to music in training, except maybe the radio in the gym. I do use music prior to racing though; it helps to fire me up plus it's good for blocking out the distractions around me.

Training can be monotonous, and it is hard work, but you never lose sight of why you are doing it. Every single effort of every single session counts in the months and years leading up to a big event.

I listen to a variety of stuff on my iPod: Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Public Enemy, Foo Fighters, anything that gets my adrenalin flowing.

If you go to the line knowing you have given it absolutely 100% in every training session you have done, you know that there's nothing else you could have done and that helps you to deal with the pressure.

When you're on your own you have control over most of the variables involved in the preparation and the race itself, whilst in a team event you are only a part of the overall picture. The real upside of being part of a team is the fact that when you're successful in a race you can share the celebrations together.

The support is absolutely crucial. If you have the right people helping you in the lead up to a major event, then you know when you're lining up to start the race you have them there with you, willing you on. And I'm not only referring to the coaches, mechanics, physios, administrators, but also family and friends.