Sporting brilliance is not enough. You can collect all the glittering prizes in the world and still not be a winner. You need something more to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
The shortlisted contestants won’t be competing for goals or points or cups, but for our hearts. The one who has the best story usually wins. Who will it be this year?
Women’s football has supplied two of the past three winners, Beth Mead and Mary Earps (800m gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson followed in 2024). It could well be a Lioness again after England retained their European Championships title in Spain this summer. Chloe Kelly became the face of that team.
Self-defining quote: “Thank you to everyone who wrote me off.”
Self-defining quote: “The next time I cry about golf it will only be with joy. It’s not worth crying about golf for any other reason.”
Self-defining quote: “I am absolutely my own biggest critic.”
He took up the game at 18 months old when his father, a taxi-driver, bought him a magnetic darts set from a pound shop. He hit his first 180 at six and his first nine-darter at 13. He puts together huge finishes in the tightest possible moments as if it were easy.
My own vote would go to Ellie Kildunne . A great team needs an individual to make a difference and she did this for England as they won the Women’s Rugby Union World Cup. Trailing Canada in the final, they could have been forgiven for self-doubt. But that was obliterated when Kildunne, playing full-back, got the ball a few yards past halfway and ran through the entire Canadian team, beating at least seven players to touch down.
One more name: Hannah Hampton is a contender to watch after winning the BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year 2025 (this award was a precursor to Mary Earps’s SPOTY success in 2023). Hampton replaced Earps as England goalkeeper at the Euros and saved two penalties in the shoot-out in the final.
In sport you win because you’re the best; there’s no room on the scoreboard for “I tried.” But SPOTY is soft, it’s subjective, it’s emotional. You win your medals and cups for being brilliant; but you win SPOTY for being loved.
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