Hoy insists GB cyclists can handle hype

OLYMPIC champion Chris Hoy insists the British cycling squad can live up to the hype this summer and return from Beijing weighed down with gold.

The 2004 kilo gold medallist topped the podium in the sprint and keirin during March's World Track Cycling Championships as Britain claimed nine gold medals in Manchester. Bradley Wiggins, Victoria Pendleton and Rebecca Romero along with Edinburgh's Hoy were the individual stars while Britain also scooped gold in the women's team sprint and team pursuit.

And with eight of the golds coming in Olympic disciplines, the squad bound for Beijing know they will have the weight of a nation on their shoulders when the action gets underway in the Far East on August 8.

But nine-time World Champion Hoy, who only took up the keirin when the kilo was dropped from the Beijing Olympic programme, is adamant the British team will handle the pressure when the heat is on this summer.

"There is more expectation in cycling with us expected to win lots of gold medals in Beijing," said Hoy, who was speaking at the launch of National School Sport Week in London.

"But you never go to an Olympic Games without pressure, even if you're a first timer with no expectations – you always feel pressure. (However] it is not an issue for us, we're going to go and do the same thing we have done at every event in the last four or five years. You can never predict how many medals you are going to win or what colours because there are so many other factors involved. You just step up there and do the things that you can have an impact on."

At 32, Hoy has been around the British squad for almost a decade and includes team sprint silver from the Sydney Games eight years ago among his many honours. And the former George Watson's College pupil is predicting the recent British success is anything but a flash in the pan.

"It must seem to a lot of people that the World Championships was a sudden burst into the headlines, a sudden rise to stardom for the team. But really it had been coming for a long time," added Hoy.

National School Sport Week is a government initiative managed by the Youth Sport Trust and supported by Norwich Union with the aim to engage over three million children in sport, which kicks off on June 30.