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Why Wiggo is my vote for Sports Personality of the Year in this the greatest ever for British sport

Bradley Wiggins: a great personality - not just an remarkable sportsman

Forget 1966 – London’s Olympic year of 2012 is the greatest ever in the history of British Sport. That is why winning this year’s Sports Personality of the Year Award will carry extra significance for the winner.

Simply getting nominated is an achievement in itself this year and the BBC’s shortlist for the Top 12 is a remarkable roll call of extraordinary sporting heroes. Britain can be proud whoever gets the people’s vote. And we could genuinely make a strong case for every one of these incredible men and women.

The most emotional triumph for me was watching Sir Chris Hoy make it six Gold medals. But this was the year that his good friend Bradley Wiggins put the cherry on top by winning the Tour de France.

It has been a traumatic year for the sport following the exposure of Lance Armstrong as a drugs cheat. But Wiggins and the rest of our great British cycling stars are now deservedly the envy of the rest of the world – and Wiggo this year stands out from the crowd, not just for his sporting achievements, but also as a wonderful personality with style, poise and an impressive aura that makes him the pride of 2012.

Nicola Adams

Age: 30 Sport: Boxing - First woman to win an Olympic boxing title

Ben Ainslie

Age: 35 Sport: Sailing – fourth straight Gold made him most successful Olympic sailor

Jessica Ennis

Age: 26 Sport: Athletics – Olympic poster girl set three personal bests on way to Heptathlon Gold

Mo Farah

Age: 29 Sport: Athletics – first Briton to win Olympic Gold in both 5,000m & 10,000m at the same Games

Katherine Grainger

Age: 37 Sport: Rowing – struck Gold in rowing after three silvers at successive Olympic Games

Sir Chris Hoy

Age: 36 Sport: Cycling – emotionally made it a British record six Olympic Gold medals

Rory McIlroy

Age: 23 Sport: Golf- youngest winner of US PGA Championship since Seve ballesteros and a Ryder Cup winner

Andy Murray

Age: 25 Sport: Tennis - ended Britain’s 76-year wait for a Grand Glam champion in epic US Open final after Gold at the Olympics

Ellie Simmonds

Age: 18 Sport: Swimming – won two Paralympic Golds to add to the two she secured as a 14-year-old four years earlier.

Sarah Storey

Age: 35 Sport: Cycling – four cycling titles at Paralympics to complete a British record-equalling total of 11 gold medals.

David Weir

Age: 33 Sport: Athletics – clean sweep of four gold medals at Paralympics for the ’Weirwolf’

Bradley Wiggins

Age: 32 Sport: Cycling – first Brit to win Tour de France and then took his fourth Olympic Gold

Gold Rush on Greatest Day for Our Greatest Team was priceless, magical, unbelievable – more than we could ever dream for!

Written by visionsport.TV

December 15th, 2012 at 2:33 pm

BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award an insult to women

without comments

BY JOHN GUBBA

The disgraceful failure to include any women in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist has devalued the worth of winning this year’s award.

It is the first time since the format was changed in 2006 – to voting for a top 10 selected by a panel of sports editors – that no women have been included. And it is not because there are no candidates worthy of consideration.

Rebecca Adlington's tweets express dismay at the twits who overlooked our top women

As Rebecca Adlington, one of those to miss out, commented on twitter: “There’s been some great sportswomen like Keri-Anne Payne, it’s sad they are not recognised.”

Lord Coe, winner of the award in 1979, expressed his surprise when he said: “We have had Rebecca Adlington winning a world title in the world swimming championships, we have had other women world champions this year too.”

The problem is just 2 percent of media coverage goes to women’s sport and we have an old-fashioned breed of newspaper sports editors who are out of touch with modern society.

Karen Pickering, the BBC commentator and former world champion swimmer, confirmed as much when she told BBC Radio 5 Live:”It does indicate how sport is viewed in this country. It is very male-orientated; it’s written for men to read.”

But some newspaper editors have simply lost the plot. The Manchester Evening News bizarely included Dimitar Berbatov, Yaya Toure and Patrick Vieira in their nomination. Sports editor Peter Spencer tried to defend his nomination of Vieira by stating he “has lived in this country for well over a decade. He’s done some grand work for City on the community side of things. I think he’s a great ambassador.”

Looking at the list of 10 nominations my vote goes to the David Beckham of the cycling world Mark Cavendish.

The contenders (in alphabetical order): Mark Cavendish (cycling), Darren Clarke (golf), Alastair Cook (cricket), Luke Donald (golf), Mo Farah (athletics), Dai Greene (athletics), Amir Khan (boxing), Rory McIlroy (golf), Andy Murray (tennis), Andrew Strauss (cricket).

http://youtu.be/xL_02KtjpTU

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