Cyclist Ed Clancy aims to put on a Hoy-like show

Ed Clancy admits he will have a double target when he rides for England in the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.

The two-time Olympic Team Pursuit Champion will naturally be after gold to complete the full set of international medals.

But he is also desperate to do justice to the arena named after his former team-mate.

“I just hope to go to Glasgow and do the Chris Hoy Velodrome proud,” says Ed. “No-one deserves the honour of having a track named after him more.

“He has genuinely been an absolute legend for all us younger guys. He’s always been the perfect role model.

“When I was a kid in the British Cycling Academy and he’d already won gold medals Chris was always the first person to come to the track centre, shake our hands, offer advice and ask what we’d been up to.

“He’s a good loser as well as a good winner, and I hope that I learned that from him. It’s very easy to base your self-esteem on how well you ride a bike or on the result you had that day. He taught me not to do that.

“We’d sit at the dinner table and whether we’d had a good result or a bad one Chris was always upbeat.

“He’s also a great ambassador and figurehead for our sport. Unlike me, he knows the right things to say all the time!

“The way he conducts himself with the media is a stand-out example of how he’s helped me personally.

“He’s a top guy off the track too. After London 2012, he took a group of us out on a motorsport day, where we could charge round a racetrack in all these incredible cars. He didn’t have to do that.

“He likes to think he’s pretty hot behind the wheel and he certainly smashed me that day!

“I’m sure Chris retired at the right time for him. There comes a point in everyone’s career when the cons outweigh the pros and you are deciding whether to carry on.

“There will be people, particularly in Scotland, a bit disappointed that he didn’t hang on a couple more years to race in the arena named after him at the Commonwealths.

“But he’ll have thought long and hard about it and it wouldn’t have been an easy decision.”

Clancy has two Olympic gold medals, five World Championships and four Europeans, but missed out in his one Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006.

“At the time I was 21, I’d just started making the senior team pursuit and was eyeing a medal,” he recalls. “But my track form was pretty naff and I didn’t make the team.

“It was disappointing, for sure, and I’d like to get on the podium in Glasgow because it’s the only major championship medal I’m missing.”