BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

[Satchmo Distel]

Wanted to get this thread in early while the events under consideration are still fresh.

IMHO it has to be Mo Farah or the award would lose whatever credibility it has.

[Janik]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Nothing that happens in the Olympics can possibly top Leicester winning the Premier League as the biggest British sports story this year. However it's hard to find one individual to pin that on, so they will probably get team of the year instead.

But if they did pick one person, how about really defying traction with a non-British non-player? Claudio Ranieri for SPotY!

Andy Murray's Wimbledon and Olympics wins would ordinarily have him in the running. He could, conceivably, win the US Open and be part of a British Davis Cup defence as well. If he did all of that, he could well end the year as World No.1 as well. Then he really might win it for the third time in four years. He would rank as Britain's no.1 overall sportsperson at the moment I feel (yes, I'm biased but others have said similar on here), above Farah, Glover and Stanning, Kenny, Whitlock and the other repeat or multiple gold medallists.

Personally, accepting that they won't allow an Italian coach onto the shortlist, and that Murray having won twice already probably discounts him taking a third bauble, I would give it as a joint award to Glover and Stanning. To quote Heather Stanning's Wikipedia page "As of May 2015 she and her partner Helen Glover are the World, Olympic, World Cup and European record holders, plus the reigning Olympic, World, and European champions in the women's coxless pairs."

[longeared]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Ranieri will probably get Coach of the Year, unless Leicester completely fall to pieces this season or the England rugby union team go unbeaten through the autumn and bring Eddie Jones into play.

Idly looking at the odds, I see that Mark Cavendish can be got at 100-1. That might be a lot shorter in a few hours given that he could win Olympic gold today and has a friendly course to become World Champion again in October.

Agree about Glover and Stanning though, there's also a precedent for co-winners as Torvill and Dean took the prize in 1984.

[Duncan Gardner]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Frampton to get the Ultonia award (assuming they don't give it to McIlroy for being Framp's cornerman).

Lifetime achievement award to Aaron Hughes, Big G and the Fermanagh fumbler (joint).

Doesn't Farah lose credit for all the alleged drug shenanigans?

[Ray de Galles]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

This all seems like picking the man of the match in a football game with only 60 minutes gone.

[Duncan Gardner]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Surely it's more

a) predicting who'll win at an advanced stage of competition, while

b) not ruling out freak events elsewhere?

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Chris Coleman for Coach of the Year?

The way things are going I can see "Team GB" getting the Team award, though Leicester and Wales would be big shouts in a non Olympic year.

[Lang Spoon]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

.

[CaptainAddick]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Froome's got to be in with a shout, surely - not to mention Whitlock, Trott and most of all Kenny.

Don't forget we've got the Ryder Cup soon - given how well the European golfers have done this year, the Europeans should walk it.

Oh and how much do we want to bet on there being some sort of Lineker/pants tomfoolery on the night?

[tee rex]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Prince George, on a Shetland pony.

[GCostanza]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Surely one of the dullest, most archaic awards going, surprised people still care in this day and age.

[Janik]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Hardly archaic. Many (most?) countries have a sports person of the year award. For historical reasons Britain's has a slightly weird title is all.

[Ray de Galles]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

GB Women's Hockey for Team of the Year then?

[Seven Saxon Kings]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Ray de Galles wrote: GB Women's Hockey for Team of the Year then?

It will probably be the same 'team GB' copout it was in 2012 when it should be really Leicester.

England are 7th in the world at women's hockey so GB winning a one off title on penalties comes nowhere near to Leicester.

Murray is bookies' favourite by the way, if he can add any one of US Open, Davis Cup or world #1 this will be his best ever season and it would be well deserved. The cycling vote will surely be too split.

[Haddock]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Time's running out to give the award to JT. It'd be especially fitting in the year of Brexit

[GCostanza]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Seven Saxon Kings wrote:

Murray is bookies' favourite by the way, if he can add any one of US Open, Davis Cup or world #1 this will be his best ever season and it would be well deserved. The cycling vote will surely be too split.

Murray has a personality?
By that virtue it should be Usain Bolt.

Team has to be Leicester City, international, Wales football.

[Jimski]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Murray has one hell of a personality - he actually speaks out on topics such as feminism, whereas many sportspeople just concentrate blandly on themselves and their sports.

[GCostanza]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Ok, never read or heard his views.

Comes across as incredibly dour, even when he wins, though agree he could be pretty smart if he vented his opinions.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Murray has one hell of a personality

Seconded. One of the most interesting and appealing personalities in British sport.

Edit: I know what people mean by the "dour" thing of course, he doesn't have the readiest smile or the most active response to an interviewer's cue for a possible moment of levity, and that clearly counts as a minus point with lots of people (e.g. my missus), but he clearly has a great sense of humour and plenty of warmth as well as thoughtfulness, integrity, insight and loads of other great personal attributes.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Who would the "sports personality vacuum" award winner be? Not an annual thing, more a permanent state. I reckon Michael Owen would be in with a shot.

[Lang Spoon]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Evariste Euler Gauss wrote:

Murray has one hell of a personality

Seconded. One of the most interesting and appealing personalities in British sport.

Edit: I know what people mean by the "dour" thing of course, he doesn't have the readiest smile or the most active response to an interviewer's cue for a possible moment of levity, and that clearly counts as a minus point with lots of people (e.g. my missus), but he clearly has a great sense of humour and plenty of warmth as well as thoughtfulness, integrity, insight and loads of other great personal attributes.

He seems to behave exactly as I'd expect from a typical middle class if not "posh" Scot in environments like interviews where they aren't comfortable. A dry humour that a lot of people don't get, awkward on camera and self-berating and shouty on court when it's going wrong (I have found myself freaking out folk in work during times of high stress doing that kind of guff). I get it's not attractive for most folk but I don't think he's being dour, just total Stirlingshire.

[Satchmo Distel]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Nigel Mansell is the most vacuous person I've seen win SPOTY.
Graham Gooch is the most vacuous of many such England cricketers of the recent past.

Murray will be badly missed when he retires, in a way that Henman is not. His background re. Dunblane is very important to my understanding of him, as is his clear respect for Rafa, Novak and Federer. He grew up in their shadow but has become if not their equal then at least someone who challenged them and occasionally beat them, far more than anyone else has done.

[Logan Mountstuart]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Personally, I'd like to see Trott win it, if only because they didn't even nomimate her after the last Olympics. Unbeaten in any Olympic event she has ever entered. Unparalled record in the World's for several years. And she's a pleasant, normal and accessible personality.

I think her time will come later though. She's still only 24, and there is so much more to come.

Even if Murray wins the US open, I fear he may not win in a loaded year.

I'm completely in the admiration camp. I think he has an outstanding personality, but strangely he appears to be completely marmite and divides opinions very strongly either way.

In my family alone, I have a sister, who like me adores Murray, but my other sister and my Mum, both sane lovely people, can't stand him.

It's incomprehensible. Maybe it comes from the obvious popularity of the opponents he generally has to beat?

I wouldn't be upset at all if Farrah won it. What he has done is incredible, and he's clearly a lovely bloke too.

[Etienne]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

With Murray I think it must just come down to whether you prioritise on court or off court behaviour. Off court, he's all you could hope for in a top athlete, on court he is grumpy and brattish.

[Gerontophile]

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2016

Andy Murray's biggest fault is that he is not Tim Henman. He is not safe, middle-England enough for a lot of English people, AND they still hold that joke he made about the football, against him.

I am sure he and his millions really give a fuck.