Sir Chris Hoy urged men to get checked out as he recalled the early symptoms before his prostate cancer diagnosis.
The Team GB Olympic cycling icon, 48, heartbreakingly announced in October that the disease was terminal. Doctors have given him between two and four years left to live. Hoy is now hoping to use his profile to encourage other men to spot the early signs of the illness and get examined if they have any concerns.
For the Scot, it started with what he thought was an innocuous spot of shoulder pain. He said: "All I had was a pain in my shoulder and a little bit of pain in my ribs. [This] ache and pain didn't go away.
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“I assumed it was going to be tendonitis or something, and it was just going to be lay off weights or lay off cycling for a wee while and get some treatment and it'll be fine.”
But a tumour was found in Sir Chris’s shoulder, and a second scan found primary cancer in his prostate, which has metastasised to his bones. He said: "I didn't have any symptoms until it was too late.
“By the time I felt pain, it wasn't in my prostate anymore - it was secondary cancer in my bones. If I'd thought to check earlier, maybe I'd have caught it in time. That's why this campaign is so important - so others don't end up in the same situation."
Hoy has teamed up with the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) for The BIGGER 180 campaign, which is seeing Paddy Power donate £1,000 to Prostate Cancer UK for every 180 thrown at the World Championship. Hoy added: “If sharing my story gets just one person to check their risk or book a screening, then it’s all been worth it. For me, my purpose is spreading awareness about it, trying to get men to go and get checked. It's a very simple thing to deal with if you catch it early enough."
While his diagnosis is terminal, Hoy says he is “doing well” and is in the “best shape I've been in for over a year”. He said: “I'm physically not in any pain at all.
"Treatment has worked really well, everything is stable and I couldn't have responded better to it. So basically in the current situation – the best-case scenario – I'm very grateful. It's been an unimaginable year. Eighteen months ago, if you told me this is what was coming up, you couldn't have imagined it, but that's life, isn't it?
"You get curveballs. It's how you deal with it, and how you make a plan and move forward. I've been so lucky to have genuinely amazing people around me, from family, friends, medical support, the general public."
Hoy also insisted that he still has 'hope' even though he's come to terms with the fact that the illness will end his life. He added: "I still find hope. It doesn't mean that the hope is that I'm going to survive this, because I'm not.
"But the hope was, and has come true, that I'm back to living again, back to enjoying each day - because none of us know what's coming in the future, we have today and that's it.
"I've been able to get back to living again, which seemed so unlikely a year ago. So lean on your family, lean on your friends - focus on what you can do, focus on what you need to do as well.
"I think trying to let go of unnecessary stresses and worries and just focusing on the important ones and everything you can do today and there's still a lot of life left to be lived."
