Quotes from Chris Hoy

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 was trying to break world records in cycling.

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

Having a fall, breaking your wrist, that could be the week before the Olympics. That is why sport is always exciting.

If I smell a burger stand I get nervous. It takes me back to BMX tracks as a kid.

My wife Sarra was instrumental to my success. When I was training, she took care of everything. She would make me dinner and always understood when I had to go to bed early or couldn't walk around the shops.

In terms of actual day-to-day training; a normal training day would begin with a gym session for about two hours, focusing on strength; so heavy weights on the lower body, with the main exercise being free weight squatting, with between one and ten repetitions depending on the time of year and the aim of the session.

Those lactate sessions were the worst. I'd be in a lab on a turbo trainer and I'd do four 30-second efforts at 100 percent effort.

Of course I don't expect people to call me Sir Chris. That'd be embarrassing.

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

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.

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.

I particularly remember the smell of burgers and bratwurst drifting across Cottbus Velodrome in Germany.

You don't know how your body is going to shape up. It's whether you can maintain the performance - or improve it - without getting injured. That's the battle every athlete faces and the older you get the harder it becomes.

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.

But coming back from injury, is like starting to exercise for the first time. You can't get stuck in straight away because you might do yourself a mischief; you have to be sensible.

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

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

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.

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.

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 certainly had no natural ability as a cyclist!

What I learned from my parents is just to be a source of unconditional love for my children.

I'd love to see Will Ferrell play me in a spoof track cycling movie.