Product Description

As the first Briton for 100 years to win three gold medals in one Olympic Games, Scottish track cyclist Chris Hoy has rewritten the record books. Critically acclaimed writer Richard Moore shadows Hoy throughout the current season -- fully updated with events in Beijing -- to provide an unprecedented insight into the secret world of track cycling. Heroes, Villains and Velodromes reveals how an elite athlete, Chris Hoy, lives, breathes and pushes the boundaries of his sport. How does he do it? And why? What drives him to put his body through the physical and mental hurdles to become the best in the world? And what is it like to be Olympic champion, astonishingly in three different cycling disciplines?This is also the story of an extraordinary year in the life of an extraordinary sportsman and his team, one which started with his best-ever world championships in Mallorca -- where, for the first time in his career, Hoy became a double world champion -- continued with his attempt on the world kilometre record in La Paz, Bolivia and two gold medals at the 2008 world championships in Manchester, before a glorious climax with seven golds for Hoy and the British track cycling team at the Beijing Olympics. By shadowing Hoy through a season, author Richard Moore has gained an unembellished insight into the mind of a World and Olympic champion. He has also attained unprecedented levels of access to the key members of the all-conquering British team and support staff, including top coaches, world-renowned psychiatrists, doctors (where the subject of drug abuse is an ever-present shadow) and the pivotal characters behind the scenes. Combining his forensic knowledge of the cycling world with his acclaimed skills as a tenacious investigative journalist, Moore captures the mood of the British team and explores an area of professional sport that has rarely been seen before.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59742 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
'This is an absolutely must-read book...Moore has cleverly used the very cogent words of others to paint a picture of real characters within a new order' Graham Obree, Scotsman 'A cracking story...I couldn't put it down' Hugh Porter, BBC cycling commentator 'Like its hero, this book is the real McHoy.' Scotland on Sunday 'An excellent book'. The Sunday Times '!an inspiring tale. And in Richard Moore it has a splendid chronicler.' Independent on Sunday 'This is a must-read book that tells a story that had to be told.' The Scotsman

The Scotsman

An absolutely amazing thing happened earlier this year. Britain's track cycling team totally wiped the floor with the very best that is everywhere that is not this traffic-congested island. More importantly, this occurred at the World Championships. Out of the eighteen possible gold medals, our little nation claimed nine.

Just imagine any world championship, anywhere, in any sport, where every second national anthem that is played is our own.

It wasn't always thus. In fact, I can recall a time when any medal, just one of any colour, would be enough to stifle the sense of failure yet again, and justify the 'hope syndrome' - that if we carry on as we are we will exponentially improve. Thankfully, this hope syndrome was ended by the gutter point that both financially and politically so nearly destroyed the entire British cycling establishment in 1997, but which ultimately, and after much rancour and recrimination, allowed the sport to re-invent itself and start again from scratch, with the help of lottery millions.

Chris Hoy won two of those nine medals earlier this year - so excuse me for earlier eulogising about the number of God Save the Queens that were played. This British team has more than its fair share of Scots, and, like myself, Chris is proud to be both Scottish and British.

Let me be clear and yet vague that Richard Moore's book, Heroes, Villains & Velodromes, both is and isn't about Chris Hoy, as such. Craig MacLean features heavily. He was there in the dark days, as was I, but he carried on through the revolution that took place and indeed he, along with Chris, has played an integral part in that transformation.

Just how dark and precipitous these days were I was not actually fully aware until I read this book. Other heroes of the day such as Doug Dailey, the national coach at the time, and Peter Keen, formerly personal coach to Chris Boardman, also played a huge role in the new order, and their contributions are explored in depth.

To be fair, the mid-1990s was a time of darkness in cycling at world level, simply because the drug abuse issue came to a head and was splashed across the front pages of the world media. There was, and still is, a drug culture in professional road cycling at world level - and unfortunately, although this problem is confined mainly to road cycling, the entirety of cycling, including track disciplines, are tarred by it.

The distinction is made clear in this book and somehow Richard has managed to get our heroes of the day, Chris Hoy included, to talk openly about the effect this scourge has had on them as riders. Richard, himself a former Commonwealth Games rider, has lost all vestiges of naivety, and he talks about the pre-reformation days openly, almost to the point of actionability.

The new order of British cycling will tolerate none of it - I mean in terms of that doping culture - even though their successes have received a nudge-nudge wink-wink response from many quarters.

Chris Hoy talks about how he feels that weight of suspicion every time he stands on top of the podium. And he is no stranger to it since he has already amassed nine - yes, nine - world titles, as well as winning the Olympic gold in Athens in spectacular style.

This is very much a multi-faceted book where he, along with Craig MacLean and others, form a thread that tells an amazing story of transformation, possibly never seen on such a scale in any other sport ever.

Despite this, the book is ultimately about Chris Hoy, the person and the athlete. When I opened the book my natural fear was that this might be one of those all-too-common chronological ego-trips that sports biographies can be. Not a bit of it. Chris is hard working, consistently dedicated, and very successful, but he hasn't melted down in public, or thrown a wobbly, which only enhanced my initial fear.

I have known Chris Hoy and Craig MacLean for fifteen years and I can say that they are genuinely nice guys. I shared a room with Chris for three weeks at the world championships in Perth in 1997 - you really get to know someone in that time, and he was as he is now: unassuming and modest.

But the niceness is what I could never quite understand about Chris and Craig. With burly, elbow-to-elbow sprinter types, niceness just doesn't do, and in the world of sprinters, I witnessed clenched fork-laden fists mutually pointing at eyeballs over dinner. Yet there is not an inkling of this temperament in either Chris or Craig.

I have been asked so many times what makes a champion a champion - what makes someone a champion and not others who are equally as talented. Richard's book reassures me in many ways that I am not alone in being at the sharp end of a psychological spectrum. It is, after all, our personality that makes us what we need to be to satisfy our individual needs.

Chris Hoy and others have had anything but a gravy train ride to become what they are now. Chris was not an instant natural success and he has had to endure a lot of hardships and setbacks on the road to making himself what he is. Seemingly confident, self-assured winners are quite often anything but, and they are winners in spite of it, yet at the same time also because of it.

Richard has cleverly used the very cogent words of others to paint a picture of real characters within a new order, in which even a psychiatrist is employed. British cycling has changed so much from the dark days. I remember being sent off in 1995 - a year that would culminate in me becoming world champion - to World Cups in Australia and Japan on my own with a bike bag and some tools.

Now a team of about eighteen riders has a support crew of twenty-eight; now people expect success within the team. Indeed, within the team there's a critical mass of positivity, one that I could never have imagined in my time.

This is an absolutely must-read book that tells a story that had to be told; it is the story of a new era that fills me with excitement with the approach of the Beijing showdown.

Oh, if only I was ten years younger!

Graeme Obree - The Scotsman

From the Author
What?

This is the story of Chris Hoy, Olympic, world and Commonwealth champion - arguably Britain's greatest ever track cyclist - and the evolution of the world-beating team of which he is such an integral part.

How?

That is a good question. Just how did Chris Hoy, who was first inspired to race bikes by the BMX `chase' scene in the film ET, go on to become one of the all-time greats?

One word: persistence.

Hoy tried everything: he raced BMX for years, then mountain bikes... then he dabbled in road racing and time trialling, while also playing rugby (captaining Edinburgh schools) and rowing (and winning a silver medal in the British schools' championship)... when he eventually tried track cycling, though it was obvious that this was the sport to which he was best suited, few would have predicted how good he would become...

Hoy was fortunate to emerge when he did. In 1997 British Cycling won the lottery. Like other sports, it received a cash windfall from the new National Lottery - but cycling arguably put it to better use than other sports, establishing a programme that would propel Britain's cyclists from zeros to heroes - from being the laughing stock of world cycling to the leading superpower.

By the 2008 world championships, in Manchester, Britain had become the world's top track cycling nation. And a key figure in this revolution has been Chris Hoy.

Heroes, Villains & Velodromes tells the story of Chris Hoy's years as a budding BMX-er, mountain biker and road cyclist... and his early career as a track cyclist.

It also tells the story of the British track cycling revolution - who was behind it, who is involved today and what makes them so good - including the secret development of cutting-edge equipment, the equipment `arms race' that goes on between teams, and the psychological warfare of international track cycling.

It is a story of sporting success, skulduggery, suspicions of systematic doping, psychiatry (the British team employ a clinical psychiatrist whose previous work was in a high security hospital)... and of heroes, villains and velodromes.

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Customer Reviews

A gold medal winning book!
Richard Moore has done it again, following on from the Robert Millar book, Richard has produced a book that is surely going to win as many awards as Chris Hoy has won world championships! As well as providing an insight into one of the last decades most successful sportsmen it also provides previously unknown information of how British Cycling turned itself around from one of the most underfunded and unsuccessful sporting organisations to be the envy of sporting associations across the world, one where even the Aussies want to copy us! Richard has had unprecedented access to Hoy during his 1km world record attempt in La Paz, Bolivia and throughout the year to the amazing Manchester world cycling championships where Hoy won the men`s world sprint championship at his first attempt, ending a 54 year drought in the blue riband event of track cycling. More than anything the incredible support that the Hoy family as a whole have provided Chris, is written about with affection, and you are left with a feeling that even though Chris does the pedalling it really has been a team effort to produce " Chris Hoy the Real McHoy." Richard Moore is surely becoming one of the most entertaining and investigative sports writers of this century. Buy this book if you want to know what makes an Olympic champion tick.

Inspiring
The story of Chris Hoy - and Craig McClean and other trackies - is told in Richard Moore's new book. It's an inspiring read, especially when you discover about the pathetic state British Cycling was in in the mid-90s.

This book will whet your appetite for the Beijing Olympics, and give you confidence that Team GB are in wonderful hands.

Fantastic!!
Like so many people in the country I was blown away by the success of the recent Olympics in Beijing, but especially by the amazing performances of the GB cycling team. So when i noticed "Heroes, Villains & Velodromes" on the shelf of my local book shop I thought I'd give it a try. I wasn't sure what to expect really but what i got was a lively, entertaining and extremely well written read about the revolution in british cycling and Hoy's part in it over the last ten years. As Moore says in his comments it's not nessecarily a story just about Chris Hoy but he is the principal character and 'star of the show'
Hoy comes across a phenomenal athlete, ferocious competitor but also a genuinely nice guy who's dedicates hiimself completely to his sport, not for the money but for the thrill of winning and being a champion.
In today's money obsessed world of sport where even the most mediocre of premiership footballers can earn a small fortune, that is something truly awe-inspiring.
As one reviewer said there will probably be a re-release or additional chapters added to the paperback version to cover events in Beijing which you might want to wait for. However i would say that this insightful, well researched and engaging book is definitely worth buying.