BBC SPOTY: Who will win?

[Deleted]

So, it's September, which means the BBC Sports Personality of the Year will be decided in a mere three months. For the uninitiated, the SPOTY award goes to a British sportsperson voted by the public to have achieved the most that year.

The main candidates:

Bradley Wiggins
Tour de France winner and Olympic gold medalist. The first British man ever to win the TdF, the most successful British athlete in terms of number of medals won.

Jessica Ennis
Olympic heptathlon gold medalist. Poster girl of the games, her achievements were made increasingly important by the pressure placed upon her leading up to the games. Part of Britain's "super Saturday".

Mo Farah
Olympic 10km and 5km gold medalist. Born in Somalia to a British father, he moved to London aged 8 barely speaking English. Hugely popular, his "mobot" is one of the iconic images of the games. Another part of "super Saturday".

Andy Murray
Wimbledon finalist, Olympic gold and silver medalist, US Open winner. A stand out year for Andy, his tears after defeat at Wimbledon endeared him to millions. Redemption came at the Olympics, and a first major win for a British male in 76 years.

Sir Chris Hoy
Double Olympic champion, and Britain's most successful Olympian in terms of gold medals.


There are numerous others, Laura Trott, Ben Ainslie, Alastair Brownlee, Victoria Pendleton, however those outlined above would appear to be the most likely candidates.

[Northern Goblin]

Before today, I would have put it down to Wiggins or Ennis.

Murray probably just took it though.

[koodledrum]

You could also include David Weir & Ellie Simmonds in that list but it's gonna be a close run thing between Wiggins & Murray, like Fengore said before last night it wasn't even a close run thing but I think Murray has increased his chances massively. Some of the list I would say would be outsiders say the likes of Hoy & Pendleton who both undeniably had successful games but not their best, but it's refreshing that we're even talking about this without a single footballer in there - says a lot about the summer British sport has just had.

Oh and another outsider for the shortlist would be Rory McIlroy winning his second major title of his career

[Xanjori]

I went for Murray, I think the fact that he reached the Wimbledon final, swiftly followed by the Olympics will have done a huge amount for him. The tears at the end of Wimbledon will have touched the nation, then to come away and win the Olympic gold and the US open are gonna be massive.

[koodledrum]

I think the only certainty there is for team of the year which will be shared between Team GB & Paralympics GB that's a bit of a no brainer to be honest!

[Deleted]

No Alastair Brownlee, Victoria Pendleton or Laura Trott on the list. Bit of a shame, everybody seems to think it will come down to Murray or Wiggins, which is probably right. My money is still on Wiggo, but it is going to be a very interesting night, and a fantastic summary of a great year in British sport.

[Northern Goblin]

I've been pondering on this.

I'm changing my mind, I think it'll be Wiggins. Even though Murray won the US and the Gold, him not winning the Wimbledon makes him questionable in what otherwise would be a hands down situation.

Wiggins right now is riding the wave of popularity, just walking into Waterstones the other day there's a good 4-5 books about him out from this year, the sideburns became a thing for guys to try and grow, and he's had zero personal failures this year (Unless you count Cavendish not winning despite Wiggins going beyond the call of duty to help him out.)

[koodledrum]

I'm not being funny or anything, but there's a little piece of me which thinks that yeah, Wiggins is a great cyclist, but where would he have been on the Tour De France were it not for the fact he had a team of guys getting him there - no two ways about it while he peddled every step of the way he had a shitload of help getting there. If that was an individual sport I think there's a much bigger question mark on if he wins it and lets be brutally honest here, Team Sky was built round Bradley Wiggins this year to the point where they headhunted the best sprinter into the team (Cav) to boost his chances of winning the tour. Hats off to Wiggins for winning the tour & for later going on to win the time trial at the Olympics (despite it not playing to his strengths) but does that REALLY qualify him as the best sportsman of the year?

I'm no fanboy for Andy Murray, he's a dour faced cunt who much like Peter Crouch if he wasn't a sportsman would be a virgin, but look at what he's done this year in perspective. He's reached the final of wimbledon where he was beaten by arguably the best tennis player of the generation & you could probably make a case for being the greatest tennis player ever - the first British man to do so in something insane like 70 years. He then went on to the Olympics, where he not only won the gold medal in the singles beating Federer in the final BUT also won a second silver medal in an event he doesn't traditionally play - he hasn't competed in a doubles slam since 2008 and will generally only play them in the rare davis cup ties he plays, with a rookie partner. Then he went on to win the US open, if Federer's not the best tennis player of this generation then one of the other two guys who could lay claim to it was his opponent in Novak Djokovic over 5 sets against one of the toughest SoB's to play tennis, the guy is practically the energizer bunny!

Murray's help came through coaching - he didn't have a Mark Cavendish or a squad of team mates out there helping him (with the noted exception of Miss Robson ofcourse), he went out & achieved on his lonesome and did so multiple times against two of the hardest opponents in his sport, he didn't win the gold medal against a rank outsider no, he beat Roger Federer, he didn't win the US open against a nobody, he beat Novak Djokovic!

I'm glad I'm not the guy who has to sit there and say X wins it because I wouldn't be able to - there's a part of me which as a sports fan loves the fact there's essentially a list of people you could justify giving it to, which is probably the more important thing than who actually won the thing, because essentially the real winner has been sport in general & the fans. We've been treated to a year where Brits have went out there & stepped up & taken care of business, who wins SPOTY is just gonna put the cherry on the top, but in reality we all know we could give out 20 of the awards and still miss someone who's done something magnificent.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

in reality we all know we could give out 20 of the awards and still miss someone who's done something magnificent.

Sums it up pretty well.

I think it could be any of the medallists, but Murray, Farah, Wiggins, Ellis and Simmonds will probably be the top 5 of the list. I couldn't choose one between them though.

[Deleted]

I'm not being funny or anything, but there's a little piece of me which thinks that yeah, Wiggins is a great cyclist, but where would he have been on the Tour De France were it not for the fact he had a team of guys getting him there - no two ways about it while he peddled every step of the way he had a shitload of help getting there. If that was an individual sport I think there's a much bigger question mark on if he wins it and lets be brutally honest here, Team Sky was built round Bradley Wiggins this year to the point where they headhunted the best sprinter into the team (Cav) to boost his chances of winning the tour. Hats off to Wiggins for winning the tour & for later going on to win the time trial at the Olympics (despite it not playing to his strengths) but does that REALLY qualify him as the best sportsman of the year?

I'm not going to argue with anything you said about Murray, since I can completely see why he would win, though I think you're a bit off in your criticism of Wiggins.

First, Cav being in the team didn't help at all, if anything it's a hindrance, since you're adding guys with different goals. Sprinting and winning overall are incredibly different things, Cav is going for individual stage wins, Wiggins is going for the best time overall. I'll not go into details to save a long explanation, but the fact Team Sky allowed Cav to leave this year should tell you he wasn't that vital, or, being brutally honest, helpful at all.

About it being a team effort, yes, there is considerable teamwork involved, however ultimately it is an individual sport. If the roles had been reversed and Wiggins had been in support of another team mate (except Froome, but we'll get on to that in a minute) it's by no means guaranteed that that other team mate would have won. Your team helps you so far (as does everybody else's), but ultimately it boils down to how good the individual is. Would Wiggins have won without Froome? I say yes. Sky would've had another rider in the Froome role. Yes, Sky is built around Wiggins, but other teams are also built around one rider, you can't discount people in team sports just because their team mates played a role.

There is an argument to be made that Wiggins had an easy year of it, with no Schleck and no Contador, however that is ultimately speculation. We don't know how Sky would have operated had those two been riding. The phrase "you can only beat what is put in front of you" comes to mind. Would Murray have won had Nadal been playing at top form? Who knows, and it's irrelevant really.

I'll understand if Murray wins it, but I think Wiggins has the edge.

[koodledrum]

no arguments to be honest - he's a worthy enough winner but like I said earlier could so easily have been any one of 20 odd names on that trophy tonight which is brilliant for British sport in general.