Six-time Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy will fulfil a lifelong dream by competing in the Le Mans 24 Hour race in June.

The 40-year-old, Britain’s most successful Olympian after retiring following two gold medals in the velodrome at London 2012, will compete in the prestigious race, which was first run in 1923 and takes place overnight from June 18 to 19.

Hoy will drive a Nissan-powered Ligier JS P2 chassis at Le Mans’ Circuit de la Sarthe, in the second tier of racing, with two team-mates.

Hoy, who first raced with Nissan in 2014 after his retirement from cycling, said: “I remember getting a Scalextric track when I was five or six. One of the cars had headlights on it.

“I remember asking my dad why and he said ‘that’s for the Le Mans 24 Hour race – they race through the night’.

“I didn’t do this to replace my cycling, but in many ways I get to carry on some of the really enjoyable parts of my cycling career into motor sport.

“It’s exactly the same feeling you have when you’re about to race, doesn’t matter whether it’s on a bike, in a car or even when I was younger, racing BMXs. There’s still that excitement, the nervousness, the adrenaline.

“I never thought I’d feel that again once I retired from cycling – I thought that was the end of that part of my life.”

Comparisons will be made with Victoria Pendleton’s ‘Switching Saddles’ project, when the two-time Olympic cycling champion took up horse racing and competed at Cheltenham.

Eight former Olympians have raced at Le Mans, but the only other athlete to have an Olympic gold and compete is French skier Henri Oreiller, who won the men’s downhill and combined at the 1948 Games and started the race in 1962.