Gold medallist Hoy pockets £130,000 dividend from his Trackstars company

Glitter: Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy with his wife Sarra Kemp

Quadruple Olympic gold medal winner Sir Chris Hoy took home £130,000 last year from his commercial activities.



The cyclist, who will be going for gold again this summer at the London Olympics, received the dividend from his company, Trackstars Limited.



His payment dropped sharply from 2010, when he received £440,000 in dividends.

Hoy has taken out more than £1 million in dividends in the past three years.



He set up the company in 2005, a year after winning gold at the Athens Olympics, but it is only since his triple gold medal-winning performance at the Beijing Games in 2008 that cash has poured in.



Sports stars often launch companies to spread out their income over their lifetimes as their actual sporting careers are usually relatively short.



The structures can help to reduce their tax bill. Stars will commonly employ financial advisers as directors of the company to ensure they do not spend all of their money at once.



As well as the dividends, Trackstars now has £556,247 in shareholders’ funds – cash that Hoy will be able to access at a later date.



Since his 2008 success, Hoy has been the face of advertising campaigns for Gillette as well as Kellogg’s Bran Flakes.



Before the Beijing Olympics, Hoy was struggling to get by on just £24,000 a year in Lottery grants as well as small-scale sponsorship deals.



