Hoy has spent his life making generosity his trademark. As he prepared for his role as flag bearer at the opening ceremony in London, he repeatedly fielded photo requests from people he had never met before. Friendly, good-humoured and dependable, he seemed to embody Pierre de Coubertin's ideal of the gentleman athlete at the height of his career, combining fierce competition with a humility more commonly associated with the amateur era.

Today, Hoy remains true to that reputation, spreading the devastating news that his cancer is incurable not with resentment, but with extreme stoicism. Just hours before the revelation, he was commentating for the BBC at the World Athletics Championships in Denmark, still as good-natured as ever. And when he revealed an almost unimaginable double misfortune – that his wife Sarra had been diagnosed with aggressive multiple sclerosis and that they were having difficulty telling their two children, aged ten and seven – he betrayed no trace of self-pity. “I still feel like we’re lucky,” he said.

Where others in her position feel unbearable cruelty, Hoy sees only a sense of mercy. The man always had an extraordinary nobility. One of the lesser-known reasons behind his crowning glory in London was that he had learned only two months before the Games that his father David was suffering from prostate cancer, the same disease he now suffers from. He was so distraught that when it came to informing British Cycling's doctor, Richard Freeman, he had to hang up and could not speak.

But when head coach Shane Sutton told him the next day, with his usual sensitivity, that he was doing poorly and that the team was selecting Jason Kenny for the Olympic keirin instead, he didn't use his father's ordeal as an excuse. In fact, he didn't mention it at all, just congratulated Kenny and subjected himself to his most brutal training regimen yet. For two months he didn't allow himself to watch a second of TV and Sarra ordered him to go to bed early and eat the superfood meals she had prepared so he could get back to his best. In the end, he didn't just reclaim his place in London, but saved his most famous appearance for the decisive moment.