The problem with calling Chris Hoy “the Olympics' most decorated sprinter” or “Britain's greatest ever sprint cyclist” or whatever sprint superlative you fancy is that his achievements these past few days here have collectively been a triumph of endurance.

Five days of consecutive competition, 15 races, three gold medals. After the first two golds, he moved on quick: sung the National Anthem, posed for pictures and mentally clocked straight on to the next event. Only after yesterday, when it was all done and he had God Saved the Queen for a third time, did he wrap himself in his father's hug and let tearful emotion tumble.

It may be impossible to be a hero these days without a weep, but allow Hoy his tears because he is not merely the first Briton in 100 years to sweep a triple gold, he is the genuine thing, a sporting hero for our times, and that is not solely an assessment from the stands, it comes universally from his team-mates. Even when Victoria Pendleton had won gold and was entitled to feel the centre of attention, she was delighted to join the chorus.

“Chris is a legend,” she said. “Everyone asks me, ‘Who is my sporting hero?' thinking I'd choose someone from history. And I say, ‘It's Chris Hoy.' He's an inspiration. He's a real role model and someone of whom we in the UK should pay more attention.”

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You suspect that we in the UK soon will. Your basic details: he is a Scot and proud, he is 32, but wants to keep going, he was a junior international rower, he likes chess, tidiness and making his girlfriend watch YouTube films of famous old sprint races.

But first of all, this is the tale of how he got through the past five days so immaculately unscathed, and it is not just a story of a head boy-type character, a leader among the cycling elite, or an athlete with a mania for training and a boffin's obsession with plotting success's pathway. It is rooted in the news that he received in late 2005 when he was left wondering not whether three golds in Beijing was an option, but whether he would get here at all. Because in Athens 2004, his speciality was the kilo, a one-kilometre time-trial, and he was the Olympic champion, but in 2005, the International Cycling Union (UCI) decided to remove the kilo from the Olympic programme.

So to be here in Beijing, he first had to recover from the psychological blow and his anger with Pat McQuaid, the UCI president, and he then had to reinvent himself. He started by learning the keirin and by 2007 he was world champion; he entered the individual sprint for the first time in the World Championships in Manchester in March and he won that, too.

If that sounds simple, it was not. “True champions aren't just people who get up and win all the time,” David Brailsford, the British Cycling performance director, once said to him after a particularly painful defeat. “The champion is someone who can deal with the setbacks, turn it round, not be defeated.” Hoy had a significant setback when the kilo went. He had many more when he was learning and losing the keirin.

By the time he arrived in Beijing, though, he had a reputation as a colossus and the way he started riding here only contributed to the aura. It has been said here that the British have intimidated the field, and you can bet that Hoy led the way.

“Whenever there's a wobble in our team people stop and you can see all the heads look at Chris,” Brailsford said. “Like a pack of wolves, when something spooks all the wolves, they all stop and turn and look at the leader. That's Chris Hoy.”

Here in Beijing, the leader of the pack was in the peerless team sprint victory on Friday and he was challenged only by Ross Edgar, a fellow Briton, in the keirin on Saturday. That was two golds down in two days. When he then went through knockout rounds of the individual sprint on Sunday, Monday and yesterday, not one challenger came close.

Significantly, perhaps, the closest to him throughout were two Britons, Edgar in the keirin final and his opponent in yesterday's sprint final, Jason Kenny. Asked about Hoy, Kenny said: “He's only human and he's got strengths and weaknesses.” When then asked to name those weaknesses, he paused and answered: “Maybe not weaknesses, just weaker strengths.”

The complicated dynamic here was that Kenny and Hoy are not only team-mates but training partners. This meant that Kenny knew that one of Hoy's “weaker strengths” is his acceleration so he therefore wanted to make the final a short sprint battle.

Hoy, however, applied tactics to make Kenny move up to full speed earlier than he wanted. In the first race, Hoy edged him by less than half a bike length; in the second, his ascendancy was more pronounced. And that was three from three. The third gold medal was presented by McQuaid, who said to him: “You've got to forgive me now.” He should do, too. Because it may be that the losing of the kilo was his making as a sprinter, since it left him with a longer sprint than any he has raced here.

Maybe. The heroic Olympian within him is responsible, too. “He does genuinely embody the Olympic values of fair play and working hard,” Brailsford said. “I don't believe anyone can win three golds without being the genuine person that he is.” But, as Brailsford added, “he's obviously got resilience, too”.

Indeed: five days, 15 races; only a sprinter with extraordinary powers of endurance can maintain such levels of performance and so fulfil Brailsford's ideal of “true champion”. Or a modern sporting hero. Or certainly someone to whom we in the UK should pay a lot more attention.