As announced on The One Show this year's Sport's Personalitiy of the Year 12 nominees are:
DRUMROLL................
Wiggo won not just the Tour de France and the Olympic Time Trial, but also Paris-Nice, the Tour de Romandie and Critérium du Dauphiné. These are five of the biggest wins in Cycling for anyone in any year, but he did all of that in the one year. He was briefly Britain's most decorated Olympian.
Winning his fourth consecutive gold medal in Olympic regattas to go with the silver he won in 1996 at the age of 19. To be at the top of his sport in such a tough type of solo sailing for such a long time is an amazing achievement and one that only two sailors have achieved in Olympic history
Paralympic swimmer Ellie was following up two golds in Beijing at the age of 13, she matched that in London plus won a silver and bronze as well to cement her place in the people's hearts once more. Bursting into tears at the end of her first win and ducking her head under the water to hide the tears (or give them an excuse for being there.
Jess missed out on gold in last year's World Championships in Daegu, and similarly only took silver in Indoor World Pentathlon at the start of the year. But in the Olympic Stadium she came out setting a British record in the 100m hurdles in the first event and a time that would have won gold in the event at Beijing. With other personal bests in the 200m (which would have been 7th in the 2012 Olympic women's final) and Javelin her points total is the new British and Commonwealth record.
Bowing out of a long Olympic career with two more golds to become Britain's most decorated Olympian with 6 gold medals, to go with the one silver he won in 2000. He couldn't repeat the three from Beijing because of competition from his own team for the single places but he won all he could with two more. He's said that though he will not be in Rio in four year's time he is hoping to appear one last time in his eponymous named stadium in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games.
The Northern Irish golfer became a multiple major winner adding the US PGA tournament to the US Open he won last year. He won 5 Tournaments in total including the last Tournament in Dubai at the weekend. But also lead the European and US tour money lists (the former meaning he took home the Race to Dubai trophy as well as winning the Tournament).
Set a bit of history that nobody can take away from her. When she won the flyweight division at the Olympic Games she became the first woman ever to take a boxing gold away from the Olympics. Later she was the first woman ever to be invited the British Boxing Assocation awards dinner, just as well as she won boxer of the year, she also topped The Independent's list of 101 most influencial LGBT people for 2012
The wheelchair athlete came to London with four events on his mind. Three on the track 800m, 1500m and 5000m then the Marathon around different roads than the six times he had won the cities marathon. In the end he won all four, racing seven times in ten days over a distance of 35.3 miles.
Mo was part of the best day ever for British Athletes in any Olympic Stadium when along with Jessica Ennis and Greg Rutherford he turned the first Saturday into Super Saturday with three golds in the space of an hour winning the 10,000m. A week later he went on win a second gold medal in the shorter 5000m showing there was still something in his legs despite 4 tough races.
Another of our Olympic Gold medalists, but as can be seen winning gold would not be enough this year, you had to make history. Therefore becoming the first British man to win a major singles title since 1938, Andy finally broke one duck that tennis fans have been yearning for in the US Open. He also took a silver in the mixed double at the Olympics with Laura Robson.
The most decorated female cyclist in our summer of sport came in the Paralympics and across multiple disciplines. Winning the individual pursuit and time trial at the Velodrome was not enough for the former Paralympic swimmer, she then went to Brand's Hatch and added both the Road Race and Time Trial golds. The four took her tally to 11 gold, 8 silver and 3 bronze in a 20 year Paralympic career.
Before London Katherine had been always the Bridesmaid and never the bride. In three previous Games she had just failed to become part of a crew to win Britain's first rowing medal by a woman. Even when she did take the gold with her partner Anna Watkins she had been beaten to the honour of being first. But it was probably the most emotional gold medal performance at Eton Dorney.
As expected in an Olympic year 11 of the twelve nominees are Olympic or Paralympic gold medalists, indeed we have 20 of our gold medalists. We have three Paralympians to the eight Olympians. Unlike last year when no women were nominated this year there are five of the 12.
The top sports are athletics and cycling with three, a tennis player, sailor, golfer, swimmer, boxer and rower make up the spread of sport. Only one comes from a team and that is in a rowing boat not football, cricket or rugby (althoguh one of Hoy's events was the team sprint and Wiggins while individual achieved his success as part of a team). Almost any of them could expect in most years to be a favourite to win because of what they have done.
As for who will win?
I still think that Bradley Wiggins' year is the most complete domination but I'm not 100% sure that most of the UK realises it. Andy Murray would have to have won Wimbledon to win this year. The boxing fan block vote only has one contender this year and that is a woman. Rory is the only non-Olympian and is a World number one (unlike Andy) but in the British Open he failed to deliver and may fall short despite it being Ryder Cup year. Sailing is not easy to follow, even though the BBC did a great job, so Ben might miss out again. Jessica and Mo were both part of that fabulous Saturday and Mo might have an edge with that extra.
However, I honestly think that one of the three Paralympians could well win this year, but will it be bare chested Weir, emotional Ellie or multi-discipline Sarah, now that is the question.
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