Sports Personality of the Year

[Tatty]

Wow!! Fantastic. The right man won. to Chris Hoy

[NFKleanne]

missed it. WHo else was nominated? Chris Hoy deserved it - he won us loads of Golds in Bejing. It was an excellent achievement

[harry]

Great! Will check it out now. Thought LH would win.

Also just seen the euro xc results, respect to the British junior women!!
http://www.sportresult.com/sports/la/fr ... RL&lang=en
Impressive from the junior men too. It's probably a lot to do with having strong training groups/ coaching.
http://www.sportresult.com/sports/la/framework/eaa2.asp

[Becks]

Woo hoo! I was so worried Lewis Hamilton would get it! As much as people try to persuade me otherwise, I cannot grasp how driving a car fast lots is more of a sporting achievement than Hoy, Adlington, Wiggins, or any of the others pulled off back in Beijing. Whooo!

[RJ]

...........Also just seen the euro xc results, respect to the British junior women!! .......

Three seasons ago at one of our eight spring fell race events, a very young local girl, Laura Park turned up. As the race got under way and the leading pack of 'seasoned campaigners' were making their way up the rocky fenceline from Honister (Slate Mine!!) up on to Grey Knotts, Laura was showing the way! She was wearing a white hat that day I think! I hope she finds a discipline for 2012 that will allow her a chance at a 'gold'!

[gg]

Seriously impressive in European X-C

Team prizes -

Junior Women - GOLD
Junior men - BRONZE
U23 women - GOLD
U23 men - GOLD
Senior women - SILVER
Senior men - BRONZE

nice

[harry]

yep awesome.
anyone who follows these things more want to comment on whether it's a big step forward for our athletes - ie was the euro xc field in general as strong as it has been in the past?
i know gb has won team medals before + some stand out individual performances from yelling, radcliffe, twell, mo farah.. but it just looks so good across the board.

On the orienteering side mårten looks to have had a solid race (27th, 1:10 back) after a relentless collgiate season in the US + transatlantic travel.

[harry]

re: RJ's laura park medal hopes
are they still planning to have hill racing in the 2014 commonwealth games? if they are that could be the event! but obviously an all round running talent.

re: LH driving fast
LH totally deserves to win it as well, incredible. but there were so many top performers this year. when you look at the list of winners you can see there have been some poor years for GB sport. eg Greg Rusedski, runner up in US open wins SPOTY '97..

btw did Mark Cavendish get a mention in the programme at all? seems like his 4 tour stage wins has been a little overlooked when i see these lists.

[Tessa]

Fair number of Birmingham uni cross country athletes at the euros doing well. good times for britain, birmingham and the coach 'bud'

[Patrick]

It isn't so much a big step forward as a general progression. This wasn't actually a great result from the senior women who have tended to win the team contest in the past couple of years, and have had individual medallists. The other Euro countries are struggling like we are at distance events, so the standard isn't great. The addition of the U23 categories probably benefits a country like GB with a strong X-country tradition too - we seemed to have really good depth in those races.

Having said all that, the top performances were superb - the Farah/Lebid battle was great to watch and Andy Vernon's run was classy. The GB junior women are just amazing right now - Ian Stewart (endurance coach) said there were another 6 girls who could have won medals if they'd been picked. Three of the top five are in the same club (AFD), and their age group records are being broken by Emelia Gorecka (currently U15). Success breeds success.

Cheers,

Patrick

[epocian]

Nichole Cooke deserved to win it

Her finishing burst in Beijing was brilliant then a few weeks later takes the World Championship - truly amazing but probably not recognised by Joe Public plus it didn't get great coverage by the BBC

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... cling.html

[Mrs H]

Can't agree with Nicole Cooke - one likes to think there is an element of "personality" in SPOTY and as for Bradley Wiggins

I was worried that the number of cyclists/olympians would split the vote too much for CH to pull it off - so that was a relief - but I would not have felt devastated if LH had won - in any other year he would have deserved it - that final victory was one of the most extra-ordinary last-gaspers in sporting history - probabaly only equalled by "They think it's all over" and Johny Wilkinson's goal. ( oh and a certain wasp swallowing incident) any others you can think of?
(Yes they did mention the Tour)

[Adventure Racer]

that final victory was one of the most extra-ordinary last-gaspers in sporting history... any others you can think of?

How about Ifor winning the WNL a couple of years ago?

On a more mainstream level, Sainz losing (and Makinen winning) the WRC title when his car broke 500m from the end of the final stage of the final event of the year! I'd also suggest Adlington winning the 400m when she only overtook Hoff on the touch were it not for Phelps winning his 7th in the butterfly when it seemed he only won because his arms were moving faster than the 2nd place swimmer's as they hit the pressure pads!

[mxhornet]

It isn't so much a big step forward as a general progression. This wasn't actually a great result from the senior women who have tended to win the team contest in the past couple of years, and have had individual medallists. The other Euro countries are struggling like we are at distance events, so the standard isn't great. The addition of the U23 categories probably benefits a country like GB with a strong X-country tradition too - we seemed to have really good depth in those races.

Having said all that, the top performances were superb - the Farah/Lebid battle was great to watch and Andy Vernon's run was classy. The GB junior women are just amazing right now - Ian Stewart (endurance coach) said there were another 6 girls who could have won medals if they'd been picked. Three of the top five are in the same club (AFD), and their age group records are being broken by Emelia Gorecka (currently U15). Success breeds success.

Cheers,

Patrick

Mick Woods has quite a training group at AFD, Andy Vernon and Ben Lindsay are also part of the that group. In addition one of my club members Mitch Goose who was third scorer for junior men is at uni at St Mary's at trains with the group as well.

[mharky]

The sports personality award definetly went to the deserved winner. And I'd say that the top 3 was also spot on.

Epocian>>> Nicole Cooke's year has been awesome, and there is nothing more she could do to impress the public. World Champions, Olympic Champion; in women's cycling hat is all that jimmy public is intereseted in.

However, Hoy had his main event taken away from him. When Brailsford was asked what Hoy was going to do in Beijing after the anouncement that the kilo would be dropped he said 1 word. Win.

Hoy has 3 olympic golds, 2 world champs golds. Coke has 1 of each. You and I know that they both did pretty much all anyone can on road/track, but to the public numbers speak. 3 Olympic golds sounds better than 1. They barely even mentioned the world track champs in Manchester.

Canvendish did get a mention at teh begining, and he had a little video clip. Personally, I think what he has achieved rivals all of the trackies and Cooke. Men's road cycling is a hell of a lot more competative than women's or track. That's a fact.

With regards to the european cross, an amazing set of results. Everyone got a medal. Everyone. The junior girls actually had me laughing out loud. However, does the euro XC mean that much. As Helen mentioned, Böström was 27th 1:10 down. In the american college champs he was 44th, 1:17 down, on a race that was nearly 2 mins faster for the same distance. And that is just the division 1 of the colleges. Div 2 and 3 also have some top guys running. And then that is just the universities. Think about the graduates. And then that is just the USA... add africa into the equation and actually the European XC champs means about as much as APOC.