He was privately educated at George Watson's College, followed by two years at the University of St Andrews studying Mathematics and Physics until 1996.

[7] Before track cycling, Hoy raced BMX between the ages of 7 and 14 and was ranked second in Britain, fifth in Europe, and ninth in the world.

He first became aware of track cycling when he watched TV coverage of Scottish sprinter Eddie Alexander winning a bronze medal at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.

[10] Hoy won silver in Berlin, at the 1999 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in the team sprint, riding at man one, Craig MacLean at two and Jason Quealley at three.

Although they were beaten by an excellent French team, the two medals won for GB were to become the start of a renaissance of British track cycling after the debacle of the Atlanta Games, for which he and track endurance contemporary Sir Bradley Wiggins would eventually become the figureheads along with road sprinter Mark Cavendish.

The sea level World Record was broken four times as he sat in the track centre waiting for his start.

Chris came next and, cheered on by thousands of loyal British fans, he bettered the time on each lap, setting a new sea-level World and Olympic Record of 1.00.711.

This event involves between six and eight riders following a small motorbike (the Derny) around the 250m track for 5.5 laps, as the bike slowly builds up the speed.

[13] Hoy's main achievement is in the individual sprint, considered the blue ribbon event of track cycling.

[14] Kilo riders like Hoy have historically not fared as well at this event, as they were less experienced in the tactical elements required for the sprint.

[citation needed] In the semi-finals Hoy defeated Italian veteran Roberto Chiappa 2–0, to set up a meeting in the final against France's Kévin Sireau.

Sireau was the World Cup Classics points winner for the season and had defeated Hoy 2–0 in their previous meeting only a few weeks earlier.

[15] Hoy became the first British male Olympian for 100 years to claim three golds at one games at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

[17] At this event Hoy won both the Sprint and Keirin competitions, defeating likes of Jason Kenny, Jamie Staff, Ross Edgar, Matthew Crampton and Teun Mulder along the way.

He then went into day 2 of the competition and took gold in the sprint event, beating fellow Brit Matthew Crampton in the final 2–0.

At the 2010 UCI World Championships, Hoy was beaten in the quarter-final of the men's sprint event by his German opponent, Robert Förstemann, who won after making an attack from the start line.

In the Keirin event, Hoy won the gold medal, despite crashing in the heats, to take his tenth world title.

This also made him the joint holder of most medals won by any British athlete in the Olympic Games with fellow cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins and Jason Kenny.

On 8 April 2014 it was announced[29] that Hoy would be joining the British GT championship driving a Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 with a view to competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2016.

Hoy took his first victory in international competition at the opening round of the 2015 European Le Mans Series at Silverstone where he drove a Ginetta-Nissan to a class win alongside team-mate Charlie Robertson.

[31] He subsequently competed at the 2015 Race of Champions at the London Olympic Stadium, receiving a late invitation to race as part of Team All Stars in the Nations Cup alongside Romain Grosjean as a replacement for Jorge Lorenzo after the motorcyclist suffered leg burns as a result of post-race celebrations on his motorbike when he clinched that season's MotoGP title.

[32] However Hoy and Grosjean were knocked out in the first round by the Young Stars team of Pascal Wehrlein and Jolyon Palmer.

[33] In March 2016 it was confirmed that Hoy would be entered for the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours, sharing a Ligier JS P2-Nissan with Andrea Pizzitola and Michael Munemann.

[50] Hoy is a supporter of Scotland rugby and has presented the match ball before selected games at Murrayfield Stadium.