Who will win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year?

The BBC have announced their shortlist of 10 sports stars of 2009 who will compete for the prestigious Sports Personality of the Year Award. Although not the spectacular year for British Sport 2008 was, there are still some great performances to choose from (it being about performance more than personality).

The list comprises world champions from diving (Tom Daley), boxing (David Haye), gymnastics (Beth Tweddle) and Athletics (Phillips Idowu and Jessica Ennis), a European cup winning footballer (Ryan Giggs), England's victorious Ashes captain (Andrew Strauss), the winner of 6 Tour de France stages (Mark Cavendish) and Andy Murray - who has won more ATP tournaments than any other male tennis player this year.

Not a bad list, but no place for other world champions such as Amir Khan (Boxing), Gemma Spofforth and Liam Tancock (swimming), or Victoria Pendleton (cycling). Nor for our other hero of the Tour de France, Bradley Wiggins. One might argue that Ryan Giggs is included as much for his prolonged success as his influence on the European Cup and Premier League winning Manchester United team, but that might be harsh. In my view, Andrew Strauss is the 'softest' inclusion, overvaluing England's Ashes win over Australia when compared to other sporting achievements, especially as England's season has been so up and down. However, he has probably also been England's star player during that period.

So I guess the list isn't too far off the mark.

So who will win?

Well, I think that Cavendish and Murray will suffer from not having won the big event, though both have had incredible success over the course of the year. Winning any ATP event or Tour de France stage is not to be sniffed at! I also think people will see Tom Daley's time as being in the future, even as world champion in 2009. The same might be said of David Haye. His fight against Valuev was remarkable, but I think that he may need to unite the belts to really win the hearts of the British public.

I've already suggested that Strauss is a soft choice and I can't see him getting it. Veteran Giggs might be a dark horse, but he might get more out of the Team of the Year.

Being world champion is an incredible achievement and some of the purists will vote for Beth Tweddle, but gymnastics is just not visible enough for her to win.




Of our track & field athletes, even as world champion Phillips Idowu is no Jonathan Edwards (who won in 1995), but Jessica Ennis stole the nation's hearts as she toughed it out for 2 days (after coming back from injury) to win the Heptathlon. While Ennis' best days may still lie ahead, we do like a good comeback from adversity!

However, Formula 1 World Champion Jenson presses all the Buttons (sorry, couldn't help myself there). He's in one of the Beeb's flagship sports (which may or may not matter), we love our F1 in this country (as a sport they have a great SPOTY track record), and his season's story is one of the triumph of the underdog. We love a bit of that too! I think that had Lewis Hamilton won last year (he was beaten by Chris Hoy) people might have felt that it was a bit much to give it to F1 twice in a row, but the fact that he didn't is to Button's advantage.

So I'd be putting my money on Jenson button (followed by Jessica Ennis and Ryan Giggs).

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If you are interested in learning more, here are the athlete profiles (on the BBC website):

Jenson Button Beth Tweddle

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Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com