Sir Chris Hoy issues cancer update alongside wife as he vows 'there's a lot of life left to live'

Sir Chris Hoy appeared alongside his wife on ITV's This Morning today as he vowed he still has "a lot of life left to live" following his terminal cancer diagnosis.

The 48-year-old joined presenters Cat Deeley and Dermot O'Leary on the sofa to discuss the "tough" year, which also saw his wife Lady Sarra Hoy diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Six-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Chris revealed last month that his prostate cancer is terminal and he has been given between just two and four years to live after announcing in February that he was undergoing treatment, including chemotherapy.

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Speaking to Cat and Dermot about how he first spotted the signs of his cancer, Sir Chris said: "I had this pain in my shoulder and it wouldn’t go away. I was 47 then, still lifting weights in the gym, still physically active. You’re used to having aches and pains but this one didn’t go away.

"I went to get the scan at the doctors surgery and they brought the scan up and said ‘there’s a tumour on your shoulder, we need to find out what the root of this is’ so I had multiple other scans and eventually the root of it was a prostate, and it was stage four prostate cancer which had spread to the bones."

Sir Chris was left shocked by the diagnosis after having "no symptoms" and "nothing to point" to his condition until the shoulder pain. "It came out of the blue," Sir Chris admitted. "I always prided myself as someone who would go to the doctor with illness or pain. As part of being an athlete, you’re used to looking after your body and being quite aware of yourself, but in this case, it was too late by the time we had actually found the diagnosis."

The track cyclist and racing driver said he "felt sick" upon hearing his diagnosis. "I felt nauseous and the room felt like it was spinning," he told the show. "I had to get up but I couldn’t sit still and it’s not the news that you can ever prepare yourself for. You can never imagine yourself in that situation and a million thoughts are running through your head. The first one was ‘how on earth are we going to tell the kids?’"

Shortly after Chris’s diagnosis, his wife Lady Sarra was handed her own diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, but decided to keep the news to herself at first. Explaining why she decided not to tell her husband, she said: "It came completely out of the blue and I just knew it wasn’t the right time. I always tell Chris everything and we are always each other’s crutch in everything in life so it was very against the grain to not share it with him but I just knew it wasn’t the right time. We were trying to find stable ground having just been given this diagnosis from him."

She continued: "It’s been tough, but actually, we’ve been able to do it together. Once you’re in it, you can cope with so much more than you think."

Sir Chris added: "Even sitting here doing this, six months ago there is no way we could have done it - it would have been too emotional. It’s having targets each day, it’s having things that you have to focus on.

"The kids are the centre of your life so that’s your purpose to get out of bed and to get on and look after them to make sure they’re okay. But it’s about bringing it back to the here and the now, the future doesn’t exist yet… so it’s about trying to be present, trying to appreciate the ‘now’."

Sharing an update on his treatment, Sir Chris said: "Now, I am pain free. Everything is under control for the moment and there is a plan for the next stage of treatment. When the current stages stop working, we go onto the next stage. So you have a plan, and you adapt to the situation, you accept it and you appreciate the here and the now because none of us know what’s coming."

Sir Chris has vowed to remain positive and is embarking on a charity bike ride in 2025 for people with stage four cancers, while also promoting his new book, All That Matters. "Not everybody is as lucky as myself," he said. "Some people don’t have as much time but for now, I am fit and healthy and I am going to crack on and hopefully raise a huge amount of money and change perceptions of stage 4 cancer. There’s a lot of life left to live."

During his career on the track Sir Chris won six Olympic gold medals - including two in London in 2012 - 11 World Championships and 34 World Cup titles before he retired from competitive racing in 2013.

This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV, ITVX, STV and STV Player