Chris Hoy’s cancer prognosis has delivered a jolting shock to the senses, a reminder that legendary Olympic medal winners are still human and as vulnerable as any of us to life’s curveballs. With that, we have gained a powerful dose of a precious commodity in sport and beyond: perspective.
Announced during cycling’s world championships in Denmark, where Hoy was presenting, it was instantly impossible to see the next races as anything other than slightly frivolous, indulgent even. There was a new clarity that they were important but not what mattered most, no longer make or break or life-defining as commentators often suggest, and we searched for joy within these races, essential if they were to have any meaning.
Hoy has refocused our eyes on the bigger game we all play that lasts long after the finish line has been crossed, the medals awarded and the velodrome crowds gone home. He is clear that his cancer is not a win-lose game. His demeanour reminds me of the line: “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, he writes – not that you won or lost – but how you played the game.” It echoes beautifully for Hoy a century later. Turning to his old Olympic psychologist Prof Steve Peters for support, he reminds us of the importance of developing mentally as well as physically whenever faced with an immense challenge, and humbly shows that none of us comes ready or equipped for what life throws at us, Olympic champion or not.
Hoy was already the ultimate role model for how to play the game, known as one of the most kind-hearted sportsmen you could meet, while simultaneously being the fiercest competitor ever seen on the track. He is as strong proof as you can get that you don’t need to be nasty to win, that virtues and values always matter – a stark contrast to Nike’s controversial Olympic advert this summer that stoked up outdated dark narratives that “real winners” lack compassion, respect or empathy for others.
Sport needs perspective so badly. I really wish it didn’t have to be delivered in this way, but Hoy has instantly shown up the shallowness of diving footballers and the ridiculousness of the latest transfer tittle-tattle. He may also unwittingly help a few athletes teetering at the edge of the Olympic blues, that emotional comedown when the singular goal of winning suddenly falls away once the Games are over.
In finding a purpose to his predicament to reframe what it means to live with stage 4 cancer, Hoy demonstrates real resilience. Not the stiff upper lip kind, but a resilience based on our chosen response to adversity, the perspective we bring to challenges, the ability to find meaning and joy in the everyday and the prioritisation of relationships above everything else. In line with research in the military, elite athletes, people experiencing trauma or grief, resilience is founded on purpose, perspective, meaning, joy and connection.
I read the news about Hoy while competing at the Head of the Charles Regatta, the biggest rowing meeting in the world. Thousands race down the Charles river on a 4km course that winds its way through a picturesque part of Boston, Massachusetts, past the Harvard boathouses and through some beautiful bridges perched at angles that haunt the most talented of coxes and rowers steering coxless boats. Each year the regatta grows and is becoming a powerful catalyst for connecting the rowing world in new ways across countries, ages and events. I saw it in a different light after Hoy’s news.
The regatta innovates in a way sport needs to do more. Olympic rowers made up composite crews, in the same boat with rivals from different countries they’d raced against in Paris. Britain’s Olympic champion Imogen Grant led a lightweight eight who had been in separate boats for years. If rowing is about how fast can you make a boat go, why wouldn’t you race with someone from another country? It struck me how mad it is that it’s so rare, how we are robbed of what could make up some of the best crews because sport is always arranged on a national basis.
There was also an event for cancer survivors in eights, a moving sight that evoked waves of emotions that rippled through the thousands lining the banks. I was part of a crew of British Olympic rowers from my generation, teaming up with four Canadian contemporaries whom we’d competed against but never got to know. The connection was instant and deep. Schools, universities and clubs from around the world take part and age categories run from 30 to 80. Our mixed crew with an average age over 50 raced the clock against a range of crews, including a younger one, with Paris Olympians given an age-adjusted time handicap. We need more of this imagination and ambition in sport to set up greater opportunities to explore what’s possible beyond the narrow, arbitrary categories we’ve been stuck in for so long.
As I went out to race on Sunday after Hoy’s news, I found myself in quite a different mindset. Rather than worrying about how hard the race would be and doubting how I would handle the pain and fatigue, rather than fretting about where we’d finish, I felt a strong well of gratitude to be able to race and the simple joy that comes from the close connection you share when competing together. Both are great ingredients for a strong performance.
Sport could and should be about more than the scoreline. We got to know of Hoy because of his phenomenal sporting prowess but we came to love and admire him because of how he shows up in moments of extreme pressure and vulnerability. Sport has not just given us a medal-winning machine but a deeply inspirational character and a sharp reminder that what really matters on and off the field of play is how we show up. We should all make sure in our next school matches, club games and international competitions that we don’t forget to play the bigger game.
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