Add BBC Sports Personality of the Year to your watchlist
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 voters – that’s us – don’t vote for someone just because he or she is good at sport. We vote for someone we adore, someone we want to be, someone who makes us cheer, someone who reminds us that it’s good to be alive.
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.
She supplied a strut and a swagger that some found insufferable, especially her opponents. She scored the winner in the semi-final against Italy, hitting the rebound from her own penalty: “I don’t miss penalties twice.” In the final against Spain she fired in the cross from which Alessia Russo headed the equaliser. The match stayed level and went to penalties, with Kelly scoring the last and winning spot-kick in the shootout.
Self-defining quote: “Thank you to everyone who wrote me off.”
Now we turn to Rory McIlroy, who years ago was going to be the next Tiger Woods. He won four major tournaments between 2011 and 2014, when he was in his early 20s – and then stalled. After an 11-year drought, he finally won another major. His victory in the Masters at Augusta this year completed a career grand slam: he tapped in a birdie putt to win the play-off and collapsed in sobs. He’d done something he clearly thought he’d never do again. McIlroy also overcame the fairways – and the unsavoury crowds – at Bethpage Black, emerging with the Ryder Cup alongside his European teammates.
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.”
Lando Norris needs to complete a certain task if he’s to take the prize because he hasn’t enough in credit to qualify as a plucky loser. As I write, he is still likely to win the Formula One Drivers’ Championship. He and his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri were both disqualified for a technical infringement in Las Vegas, which left Piastri only two races to catch up – with Max Verstappen also in his mirrors. Norris has moved from an iffy start to showing bouts of serene control.
Self-defining quote: “I am absolutely my own biggest critic.”
Luke Littler still counts as an infant prodigy, despite the beard. At the start of the year he won the World Darts Championship at the age of 17, beating Michael van Gerwen in the final. His recent victory in the Grand Slam of Darts made him the youngest ever PDC world number one.
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.
Self-defining quote: “I’m just level-headed.”
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.
Self-defining quote: “Lukewarm is no good.”
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.
Self-defining quote: “It’s hard. Being in the public eye, you learn the hard way.”
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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