Britons are slow to embrace genius but winning the BBC award for a third time underscores the Scot’s right to be considered our greatest athleteAnyone But Murray, eh? The ABM meme could hardly seem more tatty and irrelevant now, seven years after it was spawned with spite and ignorance, before the difficult Scot had proved Little Englanders and other snipers wrong with his eloquent tennis racket.Instead, the question that is now being asked – and answered in the affirmative – across nearly every media platform is an uplifting one: is Andy Murray this country’s greatest-ever athlete? Related: Andy Murray concerned about father’s wedding, not knighthood or Spoty title Related: How Andy Murray chased down Novak Djokovic to end 2016 on...
Tennis’s white-hot favourite collects Sports Personality of the Year award but the triathlete Alistair Brownlee surprises with his second place‘The people have spoken ... the bastards,” a waspish Dick Tuck observed following his failure to make the California State Senate in 1966. At the end of a year in which electorates throughout the UK and beyond have proved time and again they simply cannot be trusted to make even the simplest choice, it is a sentiment with which BBC panjandrums were happy not to concur at the end of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year beano in Birmingham on Sunday night.They had been utterly terrified the Great British Public would select a one‑two-three of Andy Murray, Mo Farah and...
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year favourite endured a tough start to 2016 but became a father, reunited with Ivan Lendl and found himself on a phenomenal run of formWhen Gay Talese came to write the story of Floyd Patterson, he decided to call it The Loser. Which was an odd choice, since Patterson won a gold medal at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 and the heavyweight championship of the world, twice. But then a champion’s legacy can be defined by the few contests he lost as well as the many he won. And Patterson was beaten twice by Sonny Liston, in the defining fights of his life, and twice more by Muhammad Ali. He was a great boxer...
Rio Olympic Games were a gold medal fest and Eddie Jones has transformed England but only one team induced panic at bookmakers and forced Gary Lineker to go on live TV in his underwearFootball has tended to be under-represented in the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year awards, partly due to the fact team games do not always advance individuals for special recognition and partly because it has been a while since teams made the sort of statement beyond these shores that they did in 1966 or 1999.Traditionally the award for team of the year has gone to World Cup winners or significant European champions such as Celtic in 1967 and Manchester United a year later. There has been only...
A shortlist dominated by Rio winners means some startling omissions, such as England’s all-conquering rugby players and even some of Team GB’s biggest achievers, but each of the contenders deserves their placeWhile the presence of the world tennis No1 Andy Murray on the shortlist for BBC Sports Personality of the Year suggests the outcome of the public vote will be a formality, there are several conspicuous inclusions and absentees from a roll of honour that largely comprises Olympians and Paralympians nominated for their contributions to Team GB’s record‑breaking medal hauls in Rio. Related: Sports Personality of the Year 2016: who should win the award? – poll Related: Andy Murray heads Spoty list but no place for Chris Froome and others Continue...