Chris Hoy, the six-time Olympic gold medallist, has disclosed he has “two to four years” left to live after a terminal cancer diagnosis.

The 48-year-old told the Sunday Times that a scan in September showed a tumour in his shoulder.

And a second scan two days later found the main cancer to be in his prostate which has since metastasised to Hoy’s shoulder, pelvis, hip, ribs and spine and was stage 4.

Hoy had announced in February that he was being treated for the disease.

The 11-time track cycling world champion told the newspaper: “As unnatural as it feels, this is nature.

“You know, we were all born and we all die, and this is just part of the process.”

He added: “You remind yourself, aren’t I lucky that there is medicine I can take that will fend this off for as long as possible.”

The father of two said his chemotherapy had “no guarantee” of shrinking his tumours but on “the sliding scale” of predictions it achieved the most promising results.

Of the men who first trialled in 2011 the medication he is taking, a quarter are still alive.

Hoy, whose grandfather and father both had prostate cancer, added: “One in four may sound like a terrible stat. But to me that’s like, one in four!”

“I do have faith that there are amazing things happening all the time,” he added.

In his new book All That Matters, the former track cyclist discloses that his wife, Sarra, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis last year.

The couple, who married at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh in 2010, have a son and daughter.

Hoy wrote of Sarra’s diagnosis: “It’s the closest I’ve come to … why me? Just, what? What’s going on here? It didn’t seem real.

“It was such a huge blow, when you’re already reeling. You think nothing could possibly get worse.

“You literally feel like you’re at rock bottom, and you find out, oh no, you’ve got further to fall. It was brutal.”

On his wife’s optimism, he said: “She says all the time, ‘How lucky are we? We both have incurable illnesses for which there is some treatment. Not every disease has that. It could be a lot worse.’”