The Scot was the star figure for Team GB at the Beijing Olympics, with his three gold medals propelling him to household-name status in Britain.

Hoy excelled in a host of sports from a young age, but it always appeared cycling would be his chosen path. He stood out as a youngster riding BMX but after flirting with road racing, turned his attentions to the track.

It proved an astute move as Hoy soon excelled and had his breakthrough year in 1999 with a gold medal in the Team Sprint at the European Championship. He went on to claim gold at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and gold in the Kilo Time Trial at the Athens Olympics in 2004.

Success continued through the next three years, before his career was catapulted to a new level in 2008 when he made off with gold medals in the Keirin, Team Sprint and Match Sprint.

Hoy's exploits on the track earned him a knighthood in the 2009 New Year's Honours list.

The London Olympics were a major focus for Hoy, who shrugged off the disappointment of not being selected for the men's sprint by taking two gold medals - in the team sprint and keirin - and sixth in total which moved him ahead of Sir Steve Redgrave as the most successful British Olympian of all time.

The 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow - racing in the velodrome that carries his name - was the next target for Hoy but, after returning to training, he realised that the time had come to call his storied career to close. Hoy retired from cycling on April 18, 2013.

Career high: A tough one for a person so decorated in his field, but his triple gold medal haul at the 2008 Olympics sits at the top of the tree.

Career low: Suffered a sickening fall during a meet at Copenhagen that left him with terrible injuries to his leg.

Quote: "Doing a seven-hour slog through the mountains is a different thing entirely to what I do. On the track, it's primarily in the legs that you feel it. A sprinter's pain is far more intense because it tends to be concentrated in the legs but what the road racers go through, in terms of both physical and mental suffering, is truly horrendous.

"Two years ago I completed a mountain stage of the Tour for charity - at a fairly leisurely pace - which gave me a slight idea of the agonies that these guys live through hour after hour. Our pain is sharper - it's hard to describe just how bad it is, like an acid burn I suppose - but we don't suffer for nearly as long. You can always back off, but you won't win any medals that way. The more it hurts, the faster you go."

Trivia: So what inspired Olympic legend Chris Hoy to take up cycling? "It was ET actually," Hoy said. "The BMX scenes were fantastic so I pestered my dad into taking me along to the local track at Danderhall where I saw all these kids having terrific fun. That was it, I was hooked and it all sort of spiralled from there."