Shows how far athletics has sadly fallen in the UK. In 1983, Steve Cram won the award by a country mile after winning World Championship gold (and Daley Thompson was 3rd). Wightman made the shortlist but came up short against a woman's footballer, a cricketer, and a 'Winter Olympics curling champion'.
Does personality play any role in the award? You have such a great personality so I am surprised you didn’t win. Or do you have to be an athlete? I suppose that would disqualify you?
i saw the woman footballer winning and assumed it was just the BBC pushing their women's football agenda. but actually the public votes for this. surprised me that that many people voted for her. not that there was much competition. snooker, curling and athletics, not exactly mainstream sports. I would have given it to ronnie o sullivan.
It was almost the other way round last weekend with Germany's "Sportler des Jahres". This is a prize voted for by sports journalists only, not the public, so I guess there could be some backroom deals or generally intransparent processes. Kaul and Lückenkemper won the single awards and even athletics fans found it unfair that mere European champions prevailed vs. winners from the winter olympics. Regardless of the popularity of the sports, there certainly was the factor of the European championships at home and the emotionally involving stories and engaging personalities (Kaul winning in the last discipline, Gina by a hair's breadth etc. ) and that the winter olympics had been early in the year in hostile China with viewer-unfriendly schedules. And Mihambo had won three times in a row, so despite world champion they didn't want to pick her again.
Such awards are rubbish anyway but I am not complaining if athletics gets more screentime through them. (Unfortunately, this might also work as compensation: Ignore athletics for most of the year except for the biggest events and make up for it in winter with a useless award.)
Hopefully Wightman didn't show up in person for this farce. If he did, it's the last time a real athlete wastes their time with it. Ovett was smart way back in the day to say he'd only show up if he were the winner. He was, so he showed up.
SPOY won by A footballer who won the golden boot for England in a major tournament, a tournament won by England in front of a sold out Wembley (equal to a week's attendance at a Eugene world champs if you like) in extra time vs the Germans in front if 17mil viewers on TV... and you're surprised a track runner who won an athletics title in the middle of the night UK time didn't resonate as much with the British public?
As a huge athletics fan, I was not surprised in the least that Beth Mead won.
That said these awards shouldn't be taken as anything more than a public popularity contest.
This award is long-standing annual bore-fest that’s been a fixture for decades and a running joke usually filling up hours on a Sunday evening ,’personality’ has nothing to do with it other than the title.The phone-in vote format is decades too late attempt at some form of public involvement ,I think the short-list is chosen by a panel of sports journalists now ,certainly in the past the shortlist was very ‘establishment’ and was obviously reflected in Olympic years and big football [soccer ]years ,best thing about it is the trophy a pretty cool model of a 50’s/60’s style outdoor broadcast camera on a wooden base ,short list usually reflects the few sports BBC still shows such as Wimbledon/various Olympic disciplines/Championship footy
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