Olympic hero Sir Chris Hoy described the last four years of his life as "a Hollywood story" as he celebrates his knighthood.

Anyone just tuning into the Scot's career would be forgiven for thinking success has come easy for the 32-year-old with three Olympic golds, BBC Sports Personality of the Year and his knighthood rushing by in the last four months.

But Hoy had to rebuild his sporting life in 2005 when the IOC opted to delete the event which had brought him his first Olympic gold in Athens, the kilometre time-trial, from the cycling programme.

The Edinburgh rider had made the event his own and - although the absolute world record eluded him when he travelled to Bolivia for an attempt at altitude in 2007 - he is still regarded as the greatest kilometre rider in history.

But without Olympic patronage, the 'kilo' lost much of its lustre, forcing Hoy to start again at the age of 29.

He said: "It's a bit like a Hollywood story! Things couldn't have got much worse - without being too melodramatic - after 2005 when the kilo was dropped.

"I just felt I was kind of losing my way a little bit, I didn't have the same motivation because the one event in which I thought could be Olympic champion had gone."

The dark cloud proved to have a thick golden lining as, with the help of coaches Shane Sutton, Jan van Eijden, Ian Dyer and Scott Gardner, he discovered an aptitude for the sprint and the keirin which he admits would have remained hidden had he persisted with the kilo.

"To reinvent myself as an athlete and take on events which I didn't really believe were suited to me, it's really down to the support I've had from the coaching staff," Hoy said.

"To be able to make the change so quickly, it shows that we've got people who can really get the best out of the athletes."

As late as the 2006 Commonwealth Games, Hoy thought the team sprint was his only shot at a medal in Beijing. He had won silver with Jason Queally and Craig Maclean at the Sydney Olympics and he, Maclean and Ross Edgar won gold for Scotland in Melbourne.

Like the kilometre, the team sprint is a time-trial with very little in the way of tactics.

But no British rider had won a major title in the keirin while Reg Harris's fourth world championship win in 1954 was the country's last success in the sprint.

Hoy said: "We thought we had a good chance in the team sprint which is all about power and speed because it's just against the clock - it's about physical output.

"Whereas with the skill and the tactics in the sprint and the keirin, it was thought to be something you had to have done since an early age and have the pedigree and the race experience."

The breakthrough came at the 2007 worlds in Mallorca when Hoy won the keirin final ahead of Theo Bos, the Dutchman who was then regarded as the best sprint cyclist on the planet.

Twelve months earlier, Hoy's team-mate Maclean had won silver after losing to Bos in the final of the sprint.

Hoy said: "That was way beyond what we expected as a team and what he expected as an individual.

"Craig was always the best sprinter we ever had but you thought that was as good as we were going to get.

"I always struggled with tactics and Craig was always far superior in terms of his racing ability."

Seeing his fellow Scot on the podium was enough to convince Hoy he too could compete against the best.

In 2000, he had found similar inspiration when he watched Queally win gold in the kilometre at the Sydney Olympics.

"You see something done and you see it's possible to do it," Hoy added.

"I've always had people to aspire to and beat. I've been lucky that way - I've never had to be the one to show the way forward.

"I've been the one that's been able to follow in the footsteps of other riders and it's always a lot easier to do that than to do what Jason and Craig have done."

Hoy discovered that his training as a kilo rider meant he was able to dominate the keirin, an event with its roots in Japan in which riders are paced behind a moped before sprinting for the line.

With more stamina than most sprint specialists, he was able to sustain his top speed for longer and therefore start his surge for the line from further out. It is a simple tactic but it has made him just about unbeatable.

The sprint proved more difficult to master and the turning point did not arrive until March 2008 when Hoy beat Bos in their best-of-three quarter-final at the World Championships in Manchester.

After that the dominoes started to topple - two golds and silver at the worlds followed by his gold medal hat-trick in Beijing.

Hoy has been taken aback by the reaction to his success - and, in particular, he is bemused at his "nice guy" image.

"The press and the media like to pigeonhole you and they say, 'I'm going to pigeonhole you as a person who likes to go out drinking and get a bit lairy and you're a person who's a bit of an oddball'. People are complex.

"But of all the things you could be pigeonholed as, you certainly wouldn't complain about being a pigeonholed as a nice bloke."