The alternative SPotYs

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards take place in Sheffield this Sunday, with Jenson Button still the even-money favourite to win the main SPotY award (although it's interesting to note that Ryan Giggs is now 2/1 second favourite and drawing closer by the day). Usain Bolt is a shoo-in to retain Overseas SPotY. And the England cricket team that regained the Ashes the overwhelming favourite to win Team of the Year (although I would give a shout-out to the Arsenal Ladies football team, winners of the domestic treble).

It's a bit dull, really. The only real grain of doubt is whether the Welsh and Manchester United-supporting constituencies will be enough to sweep Giggs to the main award on the same wave of sentimental twaddle that brought him the PFA Player of the Year Award back in April, and has previously seen nice-guy also-rans such as Damon Hill, Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski triumph on the night despite not actually winning anything of consequence during the corresponding year.

So, to spice up what is likely to be an all too predictable evening of back-slapping and poorly-delivered one-liners, here are my alternative SPotYs; some serious, others less so.

Comeback of the Year

Lance Armstrong - After more than three years in retirement, the seven-time Tour de France winner returned to the sport at the age of 37. Despite a broken collarbone disrupting his preparations and an intra-team cold war with Astana teammate Alberto Contador, he went on to finish third behind Contador in this year's Tour, at times showing glimpses of the indomitable champion he was previously.

Kim Clijsters - Retired suddenly in 2007. Returned just as suddenly two years later, and won the US Open in fairytale circumstances in September, becoming the first wild-card champion of the event - defeating both Venus and Serena Williams en route -  and the first mother to win a major since Evonne Cawley at Wimbledon in 1980.

Catriona Matthew - Won her first career major (and the first ever by a Scottish woman) at the British Open in August, just 11 weeks after giving birth to her second child.

And the winner is: Lance Armstrong. No sport is as unforgiving as cycling when it comes to exposing any physical weakness, and the Texan showed he can still stand toe-to-toe with the very best, despite giving away ten years or more in many cases.

Dick Dastardly Award for Most Evil Sportsperson in the World, Ever (Boo, Hiss)

Flavio Briatore - For ordering Nelson Piquet Jr to deliberately crash his car into a wall at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, engineering a safety car period which allowed Renault teammate Fernando Alonso to win. (The F1 wags say it was just about the only time Piquet Jr made an impact in his brief F1 career.)

Harlequins - The club's cynical manipulation of rugby's blood rule through the use of capsules of fake blood resulted in the departure of both director of rugby Dean Richards and chairman Charles Jillings, and gave rise to pointed questions about other unsavoury but rarely spoken about shady practices within the sport.

Thierry Henry - For single-handedly (see what I did there?) putting the integrity of football at risk - at least according to the FAI - by controlling the ball with his left hand in setting up William Gallas's decisive extra-time goal in France's World Cup playoff win against the Republic of Ireland. Robbie Keane would never have done anything so dishonest, no sirree.

Eduardo da Silva - Dived to win a penalty in a Champions League qualifier against Celtic. Arsenal's Croatian striker was retrospectively banned for two games (later overturned) and held up as the poster boy for football's cheating culture. Although, obviously, when Michael Owen does it against, say, Argentina at the World Cup finals, it is merely an example of the 'art' of 'cunning centre forward play'. There's a huge difference, of course: Owen plays for England; Eduardo doesn't.

And the winner is: Flavio Briatore. Henry and Eduardo gained unfair advantages, but did only what the vast majority of other players would also have done in their place. Harlequins were unfortunate insofar that they were the ones who got caught. Briatore's actions went way beyond all of these, conspiring to put at risk the safety of his own driver, marshals and spectators.

Sports WAG of the Year

There can be only one nominee and one winner here: Elin Nordegren, wife of Tiger Woods, who demonstrated that Tiger is not the only member of the Woods household who knows how to swing a golf club.

Victim of the Year

Again, there can only be one winner. Caster Semenya won the women's 800 metres at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, mere hours after the IAAF informed the world that it had asked her to undergo gender verification procedures. It was the kind of baseless public humiliation that no one should ever have to experience, let alone an 18 year old preparing to compete that same evening on a global stage.

Idiot of the Year

Mike Ashley - Bought Newcastle United. Sacked Sam Allardyce and brought in Kevin Keegan and Dennis Wise. Oversaw relegation from the Premier League, and now still can't offload the club despite asking for less than a quarter of the £400m he was reportedly attempting to sell for a year ago. If ever you needed it, Ashley is living proof that success in business does not guarantee success in sport.

ITV - For accidentally cutting to a commercial break and depriving viewers of the only goal in Everton's FA Cup replay win over Liverpool, the only moment of joy in a stultifyingly dull game.

Tiger Woods - Enough said.

And the winner is: Mike Ashley. Just because.

Gone But Not Forgotten Special Recognition Award

Sir Bobby Robson, former England manager and recipient of the 2007 SPotY Lifetime Achievement Award. 1933-2009. R.I.P.

And finally ...

Really Deserves to Win SPotY But Doesn't Stand a Chance Award

Alistair Brownlee - The 21 year old did not even make the final SPotY shortlist of ten, despite becoming World Triathlon Champion (having won all five of the World Championship Series events in which he competed) in a year in which he also completed a degree in Physiology and Sport. As if that wasn't enough, he is now undertaking an MSc in Finance.

Mark Cavendish - Won six stages in the Tour de France as well as the Milan-San Remo one day classic, confirming his status as the current king of sprinting on the road. He's arguably the best there has been in a decade or more - and is the subject of a frank and highly entertaining autobiography - but nonetheless remains unknown to many, while to others he is notable for being the only member of the British track cycling team to return from Beijing last year without a medal.

Jessica Ennis - Became world heptathlon champion just a year after missing out on Beijing with a career-threatening injury, as a result of which she has had to switch her take-off leg for the long jump. Ennis has talent, personality and a movie-of-the-week heart-warming tale of overcoming adversity to boot.

Beth Tweddle - Twice a gold medallist in a sport in which she is Britain's only world champion, and which is starved of funding and often ignored by the general sporting public (and, indeed, the Prime Minister when it comes to recognising a Briton winning a world title in somewhere as remote and far-flung as, er, London). While competing under such constraints, Tweddle also studied for (and completed, in 2007) her degree, a feat requiring a degree of commitment and flexibility every bit as impressive as her difficulty-laden, world title-winning floor routine.

And the winner is: all four of them. If push came to shove, Cavendish would get my vote, but in a parallel world where SPotY was awarded based on an objective assessment of achievement rather than how many column inches a sportsperson or their sport generates, each of the above would be a thoroughly deserving winner.

Shame it - like the other awards outlined here - will never happen, eh?

SPotY-watch 2

With the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPotY) awards now exactly one month away, here's how the odds on the identity of the winner of the main award have changed since I last posted on this subject nine weeks ago.

Jenson Button 8/13 favourite (previously 7/4 joint favourite)

Jessica Ennis 3/1 (7/4 joint fav)

David Haye 4/1 (50/1)

Andrew Strauss 16/1 (8/1)
Ryan Giggs 20/1 (100/1)

Andrew Flintoff 33/1 (6/1)
Beth Tweddle 33/1 (100/1 or greater)

Amir Khan 66/1 (50/1)
Andy Murray 66/1 (14/1)

Phillips Idowu 66/1 (25/1)

Stuart Broad 66/1 (16/1)

Tom Daley 66/1 (33/1)

Mark Cavendish 80/1 (previously 50/1)

There is now a much greater degree of certainty in the odds than was previously the case. Most significantly, since my previous post in mid-September, Jenson Button secured the Formula 1 drivers' championship with a stirring drive through the field to fifth place in Brazil. It is the first time in 40 years that the title has been won in consecutive years by a British driver (Button succeeds 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton, who has dropped out of the running according to the bookies).

On the same day that Button clinched his first world title, gymnast Beth Tweddle secured her second with a breathtaking performance in the floor final. It is a clear indication of where gymnastics rates in the British sporting consciousness relative to F1 that the odds on Tweddle adding SPotY to her two world golds are a generous 33/1. (Similarly, Mark Cavendish, winner of six stages at the Tour de France and road cycling's dominant sprinter for the last two years, has slipped back - ludicrously but sadly accurately - to 80/1.)

On Saturday night, David Haye defeated the seven-foot Nikolai Valuev to become the WBA heavyweight world champion in what had been billed as David versus Goliath, but in reality was more Jack and the Beanstalk. In what has been widely regarded as one of the dullest fights in heavyweight title history, Haye ducked and dived, the giant Valuev lumbered ineffectually after him, and the British fighter ultimately triumphed on points. Haye's SPotY odds were immediately slashed from 50/1 to 4/1 third favourite. And while I have nothing against him and have no desire to belittle his achievement, it has to be borne in mind that Valuev, once you strip away his freak show physical statistics, is simply not a very good boxer. The 'Beast from the East' does not deserve a mention in the same breath as either Klitschko brother, let alone the likes of Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield or even our own Lennox Lewis.

However, Haye is unlikely to win despite his massively shortened odds, particularly if Amir Khan, currently a 66/1 outsider, successfully defends his WBA light-welterweight title against Dmitry Salita the week before SPotY, thereby splitting the boxing vote.

As Button and Haye have enhanced their credentials, heptathlete Jessica Ennis has slipped from 7/4 joint favourite to 3/1 second favourite by virtue of doing nothing. Two months ago, I was really hoping she would win and, although I still do, I don't think she will beat Button now - but she should still secure a place in the top three.

Pretty much everyone else has seen their odds lengthen. The Ashes are now a distant memory, and while England's cricketers must be favourites to win Team of the Year, none of them will get close to the final reckoning for the main award. Andy Murray's chances disappeared with his fourth-round US Open exit and subsequent injury lay-off. Phillips Idowu and Tom Daley never realistically stood a chance to begin with.

Which just leaves the slightly puzzling question of why Ryan Giggs has, according to the bookies, crept into the top five. Presumably there has been a gentle trickle of money being put on him, to which the bookies have reacted. Perhaps they feel there may be a wave of seasonal goodwill and sentimentality which will sweep a representative from our most popular sport towards the top end of the poll. Who knows?

Either way - and, again, nothing against Giggs himself - I will not be voting for him. I can tell you right now that on the night I will be casting one vote for Cavendish (the rightful winner as the outstanding British sportsperson over the past 12 months) and one for Ennis. 

Not that it will make any difference to the final outcome, of course. I fully expect that the bookies have got it spot on and that Button will win, with Ennis second and Haye third. But, much as I love F1, you'll have a hard time convincing me that Button is the most deserving winner, though.

Keeping the C-word private

It's not a word sports fans like to use in polite company, but we have seen the C-word an awful lot in the media in recent weeks.

I mean 'cheating', obviously. (Did you think I was talking about a different word? Shame on you.)

Bloodgate

We have had 'Bloodgate' in rugby union, a very public controversy about Harlequins' mainipulation of the blood rule, where a player with a 'blood injury' can leave the field, substituted, for treatment and subsequently return. This can certainly confer a small advantage: for instance, a fresh pair of legs is brought on, affording the substituted player a few minutes' rest before returning. (Compare this to the rule in cricket which allows a substitute fielder to temporarily replace another player, a loophole which teams regularly exploit to the hilt to routinely rotate players on and off the field, bringing on specialist fielders while allowing bowlers to take a breather.)

The Bloodgate scandal has resulted in Harlequins director of rugby Dean Richards resigning in disgrace with a three-year coaching ban, as well as the departure of chairman Charles Jillings and physio Steph Brennan. (The club has also been fined £260,000, a hefty sum in rugby terms.) 

This has largely been treated as an isolated incident in an otherwise honourable sport, even though others have come forward to suggest that faking blood injuries and other cunning circumnavigations of the rule-book are far from uncommon practices. Indeed, rugby union is a sport often held up - particularly by the football community - as a model of good behaviour, where players properly respect the referee's authority and spend their spare time polishing their halos. It is also a sport where gouging, stamping, biting and any number of other unpleasantries more usually associated with a Friday night pub brawl are commonplace in scrums and rucks, where they frequently escape the attention of referees and TV cameras. Some brush off such acts as part and parcel of a physical game; I think of them as systematic cheating. But apparently we don't talk about that sort of thing in public, do we?

Crashgate

By contrast, Formula 1 is a sport which has historically thrived on the column inches spawned by ongoing controversies, accusations and counter-accusations. Technical arguments over whether so-and-so's front wing or rear diffuser or energy recovery system is legal are commonplace - pick any season in F1's history and you will find at least a couple such disputes. Conspiracy theories abound. We have had the controversy over team orders influencing the outcome of races, which came to a head after Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello was ordered to pull over in the closing metres of the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix to gift teammate Michael Schumacher the win. 

But very rarely in F1's not exactly whiter-than-white history have we seen a case as bizarre as the current 'Crashgate' controversy.

The potted summary is thus. At last year's Singapore Grand Prix, Renault's Fernando Alonso, starting towards the back of the grid in a very competitive car, won the race courtesy of a safety car period initiated by teammate Nelson Piquet Jr crashing into a wall shortly after Alonso had made an early fuel stop.

Piquet was sacked by Renault last month, ostensibly for being rubbish (which, to be fair, he generally was); the news caused barely a ripple in the media, being largely expected.

What was much less expected was the announcement two weeks ago of an FIA investigation into the events of the Singapore GP, based on claims that Piquet was ordered to crash deliberately by team principal Flavio Briatore and engineering director Pat Symonds as part of a plan to help Alonso win.

Who knows? Renault, naturally, are claiming Piquet is motivated by bitterness and a desire for revenge. But given F1's chequered history of rule-bending it is far from implausible, particularly given the street circuit nature of the Singapore track, where it would be possible to deliberately crash at relatively low speed with minimal risk to the driver and guarantee the appearance of the safety car by scattering debris across the track.

Regardless, it is a delicious story which the mainstream media have bitten into, and which promises to run and run. F1 aficionados, however, know that such Machiavellian machinations are far from unusual in the sport; 'cheating' is just part of F1's DNA. It always has been; it probably always will be.

Festina-gate the turning point for cycling

Particularly over the last decade or so, cycling has - literally - had cheating in its bloodstream. In a sport as demanding of strength and stamina as road cycling is, it is hardly surprising that cheating has been prevalent among cyclists for decades. In the early days of the Tour de France, we had competitors disqualified for hanging on to trains; in the 60s it was amphetamines; since the late-90s it has been about highly efficient blood-boosting drugs such as EPO and Cera, or even blood swapping.

For the current generation of cyclists and cycling fans, it was the Festina-gate scandal at the 1998 Tour de France which exposed the doping culture in the sport for everyone to see, and which nearly brought one of the world's great sporting events to its knees. And the roll-call of scandal has been incessant ever since, from Operacion Puerto to the disgrace of Floyd Landis, Alexandre Vinokourov, Riccardo Ricco and Stefan Schumacher (I could go on and on) repeatedly twisting the knife ever deeper into the sport's reputation.

The recent announcement of positive EPO tests from samples provided by Spaniards Mikel Astarloza and Inigo Landaluze of the Euskaltel-Euskadi team in June barely merits a mention in the context of a sport which continues to inflict collateral damage on itself, but which has at least been open and increasingly vigilant about pursuing the cheats and trying to make itself clean.

Cycling should be applauded rather than damned for its attitude. It is at least confronting reality, no matter how uncomfortable that may be.

Football has its head in the sand

Like cycling, cheating has long been endemic in football, whether it is the righteous indignation over Eduardo da Silva's dive, Diego Maradona's celebrated 'Hand of God' goal against England in 1986, or the common practice of systematically committing deliberate acts of cheating - such as tugging an opponent's shirt - which are technically fouls but generally deemed minor enough to escape punishment.

The authorities' success in enforcing rule changes and purging the game of cheating have been distinctly mixed. By and large, major rule changes such as outlawing back passes and tackles from behind have worked well, as has the practice of issuing a straight red card for professional fouls (not that this has stopped defenders committing them, but at least the punishment now fits the crime). However, 'cheating', which runs the whole gamut from shirt-tugging and waving imaginary cards at a referee to diving and other forms of 'simulation', remains largely ignored. And the less said the better about the complacent attitude to drug-testing, where football remains steadfastly a decade or more behind sports such as cycling or athletics.

Video technology is available to help punish the cheats - and aid match officials in making correct decisions - either during or after the fact, as it does in both codes of rugby and several other sports. But both FIFA and UEFA remain vehemently opposed to it. Go figure.

In an ideal world there would be no cheating at all. But most of us are realistic enough to know that where there are rules, then sportspeople will always push the boundaries to the very limit, and will continue to systematically commit deliberate but minor infringements to gain an advantage.

Like it or not, cheating is part and parcel of competitive sport. It can never be completely eliminated, but it can be controlled and punished. What is particularly hard to swallow, though, is when sport's dirty laundry is aired in public to do little more than damp down an outcry or to set an example, with no intention of actually addressing the underlying issue.

It is here that cycling is doing a good job in battling the cheats, backing up words with actions (and results). Football - and I cannot stress this enough - is not. Even though the evidence is there for all to see - frequently from multiple angles in super slow motion - it appears the powers that be would rather keep the C-word private, except where it is convenient and politically expedient.

SPotY-watch

I posted a blog last week examining the odds on offer on the website of a well-known bookmaker for the winner of BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPotY) .

I still can’t decide who to put my money on, but here are the odds that are currently available:

Jenson Button, 7/4 joint favourite (previously 9/4 favourite)
Jessica Ennis, 7/4 joint favourite (previously 5/2)
Andrew Flintoff 6/1
Andrew Strauss 8/1
Andy Murray 14/1 (previously 4/1)
Stuart Broad 16/1
Phillips Idowu 25/1
Tom Daley 33/1
Amir Khan, 50/1
David Haye, 50/1
Lewis Hamilton, 50/1
Mark Cavendish, 50/1

So, what’s changed?

Moving up:

Jenson Button’s odds have shortened over the past week, despite not having raced since his first lap retirement in Belgium. Sunday's Italian GP at Monza will give us a clearer indication of his prospects for the F1 drivers’ title; he currently leads by 16 points with five races remaining. If he wins the championship, he should be a lock to finish in the top two for SPotY; if his current decline in form proves terminal, he has no chance of winning the award.

Heptathlete Jessica Ennis joins Button as the 7/4 joint favourite. By winning world championship gold, she has already done all she can to influence the voters. It will be interesting to see how strongly the BBC PR machine promotes her cause, with the feel-good story of her recovery from serious injury; it could play a vital role in the outcome of the public vote.

At this moment, my money’s on Ennis to win, regardless of what Button does.

Moving down:

Andy Murray is the big loser over the past week, slipping from 4/1 to 14/1 after his straight sets exit to Marin Cilic in the fourth round of the US Open, the last of 2009’s four Grand Slam tournaments. Moreover, he appears to be carrying a wrist injury which may hinder the end to his season, which means he is unlikely to maintain his number two ranking through to the end of the year. 14/1 looks like remarkably stingy odds to me; Murray’s chance of winning SPotY is now realistically gone.

No change:

That would be everyone else, basically.

Like Ennis, Phillips Idowu (25/1) and Tom Daley’s (33/1) work for the year - at least as far as the public vote is concerned - is done and dusted; neither will get anywhere near the top three anyway.

Amir Khan is yet to defend the WBA light-welterweight title he won from Andreas Kotelnik in July; it is unlikely he will fight again before SPotY takes place. David Haye’s first fight of 2009 will take place on November 7th, when he takes on Nikolai Valuev for the WBA heavyweight title. Both remain 50/1; neither is worth even an each-way bet.

Lewis Hamilton (also 50/1) sits seventh in the F1 standings, with a single win in a season in which the defending champion has been badly let down by his team. He will do well to finish any higher than seventh in the SPotY vote; don’t waste your money.

As far as English cricket’s three representatives are concerned, both Andrew Flintoff (6/1) and Stuart Broad (16/1) are injured and currently absent from the one-day series against Australia. Captain Andrew Strauss (8/1) is still in good form personally, having scored 122 at an average of 41 so far, but his team trail 3-0 in the best-of-seven series and are looking increasingly abject with every match. Flintoff has an outside chance of walking (make that hobbling) away with the SPotY award, buoyed by a wave of sentimentality; Strauss and Broad will almost certainly have the consolation of being part of the Team of the Year.

That leaves only Mark Cavendish (50/1), who celebrated his 50th career win – and his 22nd this year alone – on Monday at the Tour of Missouri, and promptly followed that up with number 51 the following day. Ultimately it will make no difference, as most of the sporting public have little awareness of the Tour de France, let alone a minor late-season stage race in the US. I’ve said elsewhere that I believe that Cavendish deserves to win SPotY on merit, but that’s not how it works in reality. Cav has as much chance of winning SPotY as anyone not named Usain Bolt has of winning the Overseas SPotY award.

Regardless, with Murray’s defeat at the US Open, it looks like the field of genuine contenders has now been reduced from four to three (Button, Ennis, Flintoff). Short of a dramatic scandal, I can’t see things changing significantly until the fate of the F1 title becomes clearer, but I’ll check back in a month or so. You never know, I may have decided who to put my money on by then.

Everyone can win, except for the ones who can't

I was perusing the website of a well-known betting company last night, and noticed the latest odds they are offering on the winner of the 2009 BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPotY) award, which will be presented on December 13^th. Their top 12 are currently:

Jenson Button, 9/4 favourite

Jessica Ennis, 5/2

Andy Murray, 4/1

Andrew Flintoff, 6/1

Andrew Strauss, 8/1

Stuart Broad, 16/1

Phillips Idowu, 25/1

Tom Daley, 33/1

Amir Khan, David Haye, Lewis Hamilton and Mark Cavendish, all 50/1

There can be no argument about some of the favourites.

Phillips Idowu and Jessica Ennis both returned from Berlin as world champions in their individual events; the latter’s performance being particularly impressive and heart-warming after missing last year’s Beijing Olympics with serious injury.

Should Jenson Button recover from his mid-season wobbles to win the Formula 1 drivers’ title, he will certainly be involved in the final reckoning, although whether he deserves to be the favourite for the award is an entirely different discussion. (Lewis Hamilton’s inclusion, even at 50/1, is both lazy and ludicrous.)

I agree with Andy Murray’s position as third favourite, in a year in which he has made significant progress and risen to number two in the world, a phenomenal achievement in an era in which men’s tennis can boast greater strength in depth than it has had for many years. If he wins the US Open next week, expect him to immediately become the short-odds favourite.

But, seriously, three cricketers in the top six?

England captain Andrew Strauss certainly merits consideration as the leading Ashes run-scorer with 474, over 200 more than the next best English player. In this calendar year, he has already scored 1,071 runs, including four centuries, at an average of 56.

Stuart Broad has emerged as an all-rounder of great potential, averaging an impressive 29 with the ball in 2009 and a respectable but not earth-shattering 28 with the bat. His credentials are also boosted by having saved his best performance for the critical final Ashes Test, with his devastating five-for spell in Australia’s first innings proving to be the key turning point. But it’s also easy to forget that, earlier in the summer, his place in the team was being seriously questioned. He’s worth a place in the shortlist, no more.

But both Strauss and Broad are considered longer shots than the talismanic Andrew Flintoff, who retired from Test cricket after, whisper it quietly, being little more than a bit-part player in the Ashes series. Yes, there was a wonderful spell of fast bowling at Lord’s which led to victory in the second Test, and a final little cameo on the final afternoon at the Oval when he crucially ran out Aussie captain Ricky Ponting with a direct hit. But in truth ‘Freddie’ was a shadow of the colossus of 2005, and this has been reflected in his 2009 Test averages: 27 with the bat (well down on his career average of 32) and 44 with the ball (versus 33). With both bat and ball, Flintoff has had a statistically poorer year than Broad.

Having said that, Flintoff is a genuine SpotY contender, because he will benefit from a huge groundswell of goodwill, the same kind of heart-over-head voting that saw Ryan Giggs crowned PFA Player of the Year earlier in the year. It doesn’t make it right, though.

Boxing boasts two candidates at 50/1. Amir Khan’s inclusion in the list is understandable, having won the WBA light-welterweight title in July. David Haye is more problematic. Yes, he is a multiple world cruiserweight champion, but there is also the small matter of him not having fought so far this year. His presence in the list is based on his upcoming fight with Nikolai Valuev for the WBA heavyweight belt in November. In both boxers’ cases, a top-three finish on the night would be punching above their weight.

That just leaves two. Tom Daley, who will still be 15 when the SPotY award is presented, is the 33/1 seventh favourite. Having first exploded into the public consciousness last year as our youngest Olympian, he has been even more impressive this year, winning the world 10 metre title and becoming the number one-ranked men’s 10 metre diver. Sadly, though, because diving merits barely a footnote in anything other than an Olympic year, Daley is unlikely to feature at the business end of the evening. He deserves better.

And last, but by no means least, we have Mark Cavendish: the ‘Manx Missile’, ‘Cannonball Cavendish’, or just plain Cav. 50/1, the same odds as Hamilton, winner of one grand prix in 2009. Twice the price of Idowu. More than twenty times less likely to win than Button, who has been aided considerably by possessing what has been, for most of the season, the best car on the F1 grid.

So what has this 24-year old cyclist from the Isle of Man done in 2009 that merits closer consideration? He has, in only his third full year as a professional, supplanted Chris Boardman as the most successful British road cyclist in terms of career victories. He has 21 wins to his name this year alone (equivalent, say, to a striker scoring 40 goals in a season), including three stages of the Giro d’Italia and a staggering six at the Tour de France, more than anyone has managed for 30 years. He is indisputably the fastest sprinter in the world; unquestionably the current master practitioner of his art.

He will also be lucky to go any further than making the BBC’s on-the-night shortlist of ten. This, despite the current holder of the SPotY award being a cyclist (the thoroughly deserving Chris Hoy), the success of Bradley Wiggins at July’s Tour de France (he finished fourth overall) and the impending entry of the heavily-funded Sky team, whose stated aim is to nurture and produce a British winner of the Tour. I’ll be surprised if Cavendish finishes higher than seventh or eighth in the voting.

That, in my opinion, is symptomatic of negligence on the part of the BBC, whose remit is to educate, entertain and inform. For me, this means giving some of the lower-profile sports, particularly those where we have genuinely world-class performers, some much-needed publicity as part of the SPotY programme,

Instead, I can guarantee you that the build-up to the big night - which has already started on the BBC Sport website - will focus on the three or four candidates whose stories will generate the most column inches (and make the most popular Radio Times covers): Ennis, the girl next door who fought back from career-threatening injury; Button, the forgotten man of F1, reborn in a Brawn team which nearly ceased to exist last winter; Flintoff, the battered but unbowed retiring hero who helped bring the Ashes back home; Murray, our best hope since Fred Perry for that long-lost Wimbledon singles title.

And on the night itself, we will spend lots of time focussing on the big six - football, cricket, athletics, Formula 1, boxing, tennis – which have produced 39 of SPotY’s 55 winners, with most of the others receiving little more than a token mention (particularly for sports like cycling where the BBC can conveniently claim it does not have any TV rights).

That, for me, is a big failure on the BBC’s part. SPotY nowadays is about feeding the lowest common denominator – give the people a feel-good, soundbite-friendly two hours focussing on the sports we all know about. Entertain first; educate and inform second (if at all).

For what it’s worth, my personal criterion for determining who gets my vote on SPotY night is a simple one: which UK sportsperson has, in my opinion, achieved the most in their chosen field in 2009? No more, no less. Not who has the highest profile, or who is the best ambassador, or who “is the best since …”, or who is the pluckiest runner-up, or who gets my sentimental vote, or who was on the cover of Radio Times in the run-up to SPotY.

On that basis, regardless of the merits of Ennis (who I think will win), or anything Button, Murray or Haye might achieve between now and December 13^th, I will be casting my vote for Mark Cavendish. Simply because he is the best in the world at what he does, and arguably one of the very best ever.

He won’t win Sports Personality of the Year. But he really should do.

Twice is no accident

One by one, the names of the 'Beijing Six' are gradually being revealed. Yesterday, we learned that Italy's Davide Rebellin and Bahrain's Rashid Ramzi had tested positive for the prohibited blood-booster Cera, based on analysis of samples from the Beijing Olympics.

And now the German Olympic Federation has reported that cyclist Stefan Schumacher is also one of the six. Schumacher won both individual time trial stages at last July's Tour de France, only for it to be revealed in October (i.e. post-Beijing) that he had tested positive for - you guessed it - Cera. He has since been given with a two-year ban from cycling's governiung body, the UCI.

It now appears that this was no one-off. Unaware that he had already given a positive sample at the Tour in July, he subsequently went to the Olympics the following month and doped again.

The likely punishment is a multi-year ban, possibly even a lifetime ban. Schumacher is only 27, and any extended sanction will deprive him of his peak racing years.

Tough.

Innocent until proven guilty, sure - and Schumacher has certainly been both frequent and voluble in his protestations of innocence. But the tests have historically been pretty reliable, and to be caught twice in such a short period - particularly for a new drug which was thought by potential dopers to be undetectable at the time - suggests the odds of a mistake are negligible.

Stefan Schumacher got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, not once but twice. As a result, his career is probably over. That's the price you should expect to pay for systematically and unfairly promoting your success and livelihood at the expense of others. He deserves no sympathy whatsoever.

Gotcha!

There is an old proverb which states that 'cheats never prosper', but this is clearly not always the case in top-level sports. For every Ben Johnson or Marion Jones or Dwain Chambers, who really knows how many others slip through the net?

The anti-doping authorities do the best they can to pursue the cheats, but it has always been - and will always be - a chase in which those who choose to take the most sophisticated performance-enhancing substances will always have a head start. Billions of dollars go into the development of these drugs (many of them designed for clinical rather than athletic use) and for every new one that is launched, there is inevitably a time lag while a reliable test is devised and then agreed by the powers that be. For sure, the gap is closing and the window of opportunity for potential cheats grows ever smaller, but for those willing to take the risk there is still an advantage to be gained.

So it was with great delight that I read yesterday that the IOC had retested 948 samples from the Beijing Olympics using a newly ratified test for Cera, a modified form of the blood-booster EPO. In so doing, they unearthed six positive results, including the Italian Davide Rebellin, who 'won' silver in the cycling road race, and 1500 metres runner Rashid Ramzi, 'winner' of Bahrain's first ever track and field gold.

Better late than never.

While it is only recently (i.e. post-Beijing) that the procedure for tracing Cera has been validated for global testing, in actuality one has existed since last summer when ASO, the organisers of the Tour de France, chose to enforce the new Cera test as part of their anti-doping measures, resulting in the disqualification and subsequent banning of double stage-winner Riccardo Ricco.

It was a brave decision by ASO, who effectively decided to plough a lone furrow in advance of the rest of the sporting world, and in so doing caught out not just Ricco but several other riders who thought they were cheating with impunity by taking a supposedly undetectable drug. (It was a decision which scarred the 2008 event in the short-term, with its mass disqualifications and suspicious 'retirements', but was unequivocally the right thing to do for an event which is trying to rebuild its credibility as being 'clean'.)

While it would of course have been better if the tests had been in place for Beijing, the message this week's news sends is definitely a positive one. Use performance-enhancing substances and there is a good chance you will get caught either immediately or subsequently. Even after the medals have been handed out, this means the cheats will always have to be looking over their shoulders ... and not just at the undoped athletes behind them whose glory they are unfairly denying.

And to that I say: good.

2008: 10 of the best

There really is no such thing as a bad sporting year, but I'm sure history will look back on 2008 as a particularly fine vintage for both British and international sport.

Certainly I've enjoyed it immensely, despite recent fatherhood restricting my ability to attend live sporting events this year (just the two: the Wembley NFL game and a stage finish of the Tour of Britain).

There have been too many highlights in 2008 for me to pick a single moment which stands out above all the others, so here is a personal top 10: some distinctly British, others truly global, but all moments of high sporting achievement and/or drama which are indelibly etched into my memory. In chronological order:

3 February: Super Bowl XLII - There is an old paradox which asks what would happen if an irresistible force were to meet an immovable object. We saw one possible answer here as the New York Giants (immovable object: tough, no-nonsense defense) defeated the New England Patriots (irresistible force: record-breaking offense), 17-14.

There has been a smattering of truly great Super Bowls in its 42-year history; this was perhaps the best of them all: great offensive plays, great defensive plays, outcome always in doubt, the winning score going to the underdog with just 35 seconds remaining.

And there was a great narrative behind the game too. The Giants' Eli Manning succesfully stepped out of the shadow of his brother Peyton, the previous year's Super Bowl-winning quarterback. Meanwhile, the Patriots failed in their quest to complete only the second 'perfect' (unbeaten, untied) season in NFL history, and the first since the league expanded to a 16-game regular season.

One destiny fulfilled; another forever incomplete. Link

21 May: UEFA Champions League final - Notable not only for being the first all-English European Cup final, but for 120 minutes of ratcheting tension capped by the ultimate drama of a penalty shootout in which first both Cristiano Ronaldo and England captain John Terry missed their spot kicks.

The Champions League final is so often one of the most over-hyped, underwhelming games of the season. Not this time.

9 June: Euro 2008 - Holland 3 Italy 0. If you ever had just one opportunity to convince a football-sceptic about the beauty that the modern game has to offer, look no further than this game. Two strong, contrasting sides: Dutch artistry versus Italian pragmatism. A controversial opening goal. (No truly memorable game is complete without a dubious incident). Two textbook examples of sweeping, counter-attacking goals. And a game in which the losing side gave as good as they got, but without the goals (and the luck) to go with it.

The only think wrong with this game was that it occurred in the group stages - it would have made a fitting final. Link

6 July: Wimbledon men's singles final

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

As with Bjorn Borg, Roger Federer fell at the sixth time of asking, having won the previous five men's singles finals on Wimbledon's hallowed turf. But, my God, he didn't give up without a fight, and in doing so he reminded us all why he is regarded as such a great champion.

Borg's nemesis was John McEnroe; Federer's Rafael Nadal. And it required his greatest adversary, at the very peak of his powers, to strain every sinew (and Nadal is not exactly short of sinew), to wrest the title which he appeared to have won on several occasions during the match. Two sets down, with three break points against his own serve; a break down in the fourth set; 15-40 and 0-30 down in the middle of the final set - on each occasion Federer refused to go gentle into that good night (by the end of the match, it was virtually night) and dug deeper than he ever has before, sending a defiant hail of aces, volleys and seemingly impossible ground-strokes past his opponent.

It is not victory that defines the truly great champions; it is their response to defeat, or to its prospect. Federer may have lost the match and his title, but he went up significantly in my estimation during an afternoon and evening in which he raged futilely but gloriously against the dying of the light. Link

9, 12, 17 & 18 July: Tour de France - No British cyclist has ever achieved what the 23-year old Mark Cavendish acheived in 2008. World champion on the track (with Bradley Wiggins in the madison) in March. 17 road race wins, including two in the Giro d'Italia which announced his presence as a top sprinter in the grand tours. And then, over the course of ten incredible days in July, he became the top sprinter in world cycling, winning four sprint finishes with an ease which was at times embarrassing. Just as Usain Bolt was so dominant in the Olympic 100 metres final that he was able to start celebrating 20 metres from the line, so too Cavendish. It simply shouldn't be that easy; like Bolt, Cav made such premature jubilation look routine.

Lightning fast, tactically astute, and with the best years of his career still in front of him, we have not seen the last of this young man. Watch out for him in 2009 - if he's not travelling too fast to see, that is. Link

8 August: Olympic Games opening ceremony - China had already showed itself off to the world with its impressive Olympic stadia; the Bird's Nest and Water Cube being two of the most striking venues ever seen. But they also wanted to showcase the country's rich culture and history with an opening ceremony which they hoped would set a new standard.

No question, they achieved it.

From the glowing Fou drummers (2,008 of them, of course), to the giant LED scroll which gave us a potted (if somewhat santised) tour of China's history and contributions to global technology, to the fireworks display to end all fireworks displays (even if some of them were created with CGI), to Li Ning's wire-supported 'run' around the inside of the Bird's Nest's roof to light the Olympic flame - no one has even come close to matching the sheer scale and spectacle of Beijing's opening ceremony. Quite possibly, no one ever will.

This - as much as China's table-topping haul of 51 gold medals, or Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps - was the defining memory of the 2008 Summer Olympics. And, if anyone wasn't already aware of China's growing role as a commercial and cultural global power, this put the most populous nation on earth well and truly on the map. London has a tough act to follow in 2012.

10-17 August: Olympic Games, swimming - Eight days, eight gold medals - including a fingertip victory in the 100 metres butterfly won as much by sheer force of will as pure ability - seven world records. A career total of 14 Olympic golds. If he had declared himself an independent nation, he would have been tenth in the final medals table.

Usain Bolt may have ultimately stolen his thunder, but for sheer, sustained domination of a sport, Michael Phelps remains peerless. Link

16 & 20 August: Olympic Games, men's 100 & 200 metres finals - 9.69s for the 100 metres - while throttling back in celebration - was inconceivable enough. But then, four days later, Usain Bolt beat the one men's track and field record which I genuinely thought I would never see broken, Michael Johnson's 19.32s time for 200 metres. It secured the Jamaican's status as the star of the Olympics, despite the achievements of the aforementioned Phelps.

If anything, Bolt's 200 was even better than the 100. Sure, Bolt could have registered 9.65 or less in the 100 if he had maintained his sprint. But here's the thing: not only did Bolt complete the 200 in 19.30s, not only did he do it despite it carrying the weight of global expectation on his shoulders, but he did it running into a significant headwind of -0.9m/s. Even the forces of nature couldn't stop him: now that's truly phenomenal.

Oh, and of course he was part of the Jamaican team that took three-tenths of a second off the world record for the 4x100 relay. But, by Usain Bolt's standards, that was just a quiet day at the office.

6-17 September: Paralympic Games - Since the first Paralympic games in 1960, the event's scope, awareness and media coverage have all steadily grown. Beijing's Paralympics was no exception, with over 4,000 athletes competing for 473 gold medals.

UK TV audiences were able to watch daily coverage, courtesy of the BBC. And as successful as Team GB had been at the main Summer Olympics, the medal haul of the British Paralympians was even more remarkable. 42 golds among a total of 102 medals (more than the USA and second only to China), with 17 multiple gold-winning athletes, including four each for cyclist Darren Kenny and swimmer David Roberts, and double gold in the pool for 13-year old Eleanor Simmonds.

More than anything, the Paralympians demonstrated that they are every bit as capable and dedicated as their able-bodied counterparts, and as an audience we were able to focus on the athletes' abilities, rather than their disabilities. I'm already looking forward to attending the London 2012 Paralympics every bit as much as the Summer Olympics - great sporting competition is no different whether it is Chris Hoy or Darren Kenny, or David Roberts or Rebecca Adlington.

2 November: Brazilian GP - Many, many column inches had been written about how Lewis Hamilton threw away a seemingly certain world championship as a rookie in 2007. So when he lost the fifth position he required to clinch the 2008 title to Sebastian Vettel in the final laps of a horrifically tricky wet/dry race at Interlagos, you could sense the obituaries being written already.

What then happened in the closing moments was one part triumph, one part tragedy and 100% Hollywood. As Felipe Massa crossed the finish line and his family and Ferrari team started celebrating in the pit lane, Hamilton dived past Timo Glock - who had started the final lap fully 18 seconds ahead of him but, crucially, still on dry tyres on a damp track - in the last few metres.

F1 has previously had its fair share of end-of-season championship dramas - Nigel Mansell's exploding tyre (1986), Michael Schumacher's collision with Damon Hill (1994), to name but two - but never has the title changed hands so late in the race or in such a - literally - incredible fashion. For those with long-enough memories, this was the equivalent of Michael Thomas's injury time goal to snatch the league title from Liverpool on their own turf in 1989, but at 180mph. Written on paper, it is barely plausible. But that's sport for you. Link

So, that's a wrap for 2008.

2009? Bring it on.

The real McHoy

Like many others, I was watching Sports Personality of the Year (or SPotY, as the BBC likes to abbreviate it to) on television last night.

It’s the sort of wonderfully quaint concept only the British could come up with, isn’t it? Not an award for outright achievement, but one for the nation’s favourite ‘sports personality’, whatever that means. If you asked a hundred people for their definition, you would probably get a hundred different answers, although I suspect many would say something along the lines of “the winner needs to be at or near the top of their sport, but we have to like them too”.

By that definition, several of the short-listed ten nominees were out of the running before they even started: Rebecca Romero, Olympic medallist in two different sports, is a hard-as-nails competitor who exudes little warmth; Christine Ohuruogu is tainted by her ban for missing three drugs tests and a correspondingly defensive PR image; Andy Murray is still seen by some as the stroppy teenager of a couple of years ago (and he didn’t turn up anyway, a guaranteed vote-loser); little is known about Ben Ainslie, brilliant yachtsman though he is, because he only surfaces in Olympic years and competes in probably the world’s least telegenic sport. Even Lewis Hamilton, recently crowned Formula 1 champion and the pre-show bookies’ favourite, is resented by some for his millionaire’s lifestyle and tax exile status.

Chris Hoy, however, ticked all the boxes - achievement, popularity and personality - living up to his nickname 'the real McHoy'. Already a gold medallist in Athens, he added three more in Beijing, putting him behind only Sir Steve Redgrave among British Olympians. He greets the world with a smile and a humbleness which endears him to the public, and he has not been afraid to speak his mind on issues close to him and his sport articulately and intelligently, which immediately sets him apart from the bland, repetitive, PR-friendly proclamations of so many of his fellow sports stars.

There was something satisfyingly right about Hoy winning. Here is a man undeniably at the top of his game, but also an all-around nice guy to boot, one who remains unspoilt by the trapping of fame. And, nothing against Lewis Hamilton, but it was gratifying to see the spotlight turned onto a sportsman who, despite being one of the ‘elite’ athletes supported by lottery money, earns considerably less in a year than Hamilton or, say, Michael Owen does in a week.

While there have been some decidedly weak years in the past where the SPotY winner was, frankly, the best of a poor bunch - Damon Hill in 1994, Greg Rusedski in 1997, Zara Phillips in 2006 to name but three – Hoy triumphed over not just the Formula 1 world champion, but a swathe of Olympic and Paralympic gold medallists (including cyclist Darren Kenny and swimmer David Roberts, who each won four Paralympic golds), an undefeated boxing world champion (Joe Calzaghe), and Mark Cavendish, who didn’t even make the final ten despite winning four stages in the Tour de France and being the dominant sprinter in stage races throughout the year.

Many of the other award winners on the night (judged by an expert panel rather than the public) were spot on as well. Ellie Simmonds, double Paralympic swimming gold medallist at the age of 13, won the Young Sports Personality award. Bobby Charlton received a Lifetime Achievement award. Usain Bolt, the megawatt-smiling Jamaican, won Overseas Sports Personality.

However, in a year of many great achievements, cycling deservedly dominated the proceedings, winning the accolades of Team of the Year, Coach of the Year (performance director Dave Brailsford), and, of course, the main SPotY award for Hoy.

It was a great advertisement for a relatively minor and yet easily accessible sport where Britain has always had good talent, but lacked the funding and professional organisation which turns good athletes who think they might win into great ones who know they will win.

All in all, it was a good night recapping a truly great sporting year in which Britain more than punched its weight.

However, I do have a few small gripes.

Nowadays, SPotY is a tightly-produced, polished and glitzy two hour affair, full of those little music-backed video montages which the BBC does so well.

But where has the fun gone? And where are the little insights the event used to give us into our sporting heroes?

I’m old enough to remember when BBC Sports Review (as it was then called) was just that: a comprehensive documentary review of the sporting year, as opposed to a sporting Oscars. As recently as the early 90s, the show still had an off-the-cuff, almost slightly amateurish feel about it, and it was no worse for that. There was always some silly stunt – Nigel Mansell competing on a driving arcade game, a celebrity penalty shootout – to provide light relief. (I’m sorry, but having James Toseland play the piano (last year) or Zac Purchase on his saxophone (this year) just doesn’t compare.) And, despite having a scheduled running time of at least 14 hours, it always – always – overran, largely because you felt everyone involved was just enjoying themselves too much, and nobody had the heart to stop the party. Sadly, no more.

And don’t get me started on those little 60 second soundbite interviews which serve no other purpose than to provide the full stop to a carefully prepared narrative which has already been related to the viewer via one of the aforementioned video montages. Do I feel I know anything more about Ohuruogu, Ainslie or Rebecca Adlington as a result of watching their interviews? No. I appreciate there isn’t the time for anything more than that these days, but what a shame that is, when we will not see many of these stars in such a high-profile arena again until London 2012.

Speaking of which, you could be forgiven at times during the programme for thinking that the 2008 sporting calendar consisted solely of the Olympics. Sure, there is a broader agenda here, starting the build-up to the 2012 Games, but it was, for me, another missed opportunity to promote British sport in its wider context. Take cycling. On top of their Olympic and Paralympic success, the British team dominated the track world championships in Manchester every bit as much as in Beijing, Mark Cavendish firmly established himself as the fastest man on two wheels at the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and other races, and, in September, Nicole Cooke completed a unique double of Olympic and world championship gold in the women’s road race. And yet each of these was barely mentioned in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it dispatches. Again, a shame. Where was the rallying call for Joe Public to get on his bike, or to support the Tour of Britain or the many hundreds of club events that happen the length and breadth of the UK throughout the year?

One final footnote on Cooke. She now seems destined to be forever labelled as ‘the one who started the Beijing gold rush’, rather than being recognised as a serial winner whose CV includes not only Olympic and Commonwealth gold, but a world title and wins in the women’s equivalents of both the Tour de France (twice) and the Giro d’Italia. It’s not all about the Olympics, folks – even if Cooke had finished out of the medals at the Olympics, she would still be one of our most successful road cyclists ever.

However, these are pretty minor grumbles at the end of a great event at the end of a great year. And just think, I haven’t even touched on the epic Federer/Nadal Wimbledon final, or the all-English Champions League final, or the monsoon drama of the season-ending Brazilian GP, or the inhumanly brilliant Michael Phelps. (OK, Phelps isn’t British but, like Bolt, there are some transcending moments in sport where nationality really doesn’t matter.)

Here’s hoping 2009 is anywhere near as good.

(P.S. How long until the BBC go the whole hog and rebrand SPotY as the ‘Sportys’? You just know it’s going to happen one day …)