TIMES IS RECORD FOR OUR ANDY
Tennis World No1 wins historic third BBC Sports Personality of the Year
Dunblane tennis ace Andy Murray was on Sunday named BBC Sports Personality of the Year for a record third time.
It was an emphatic victory for the tennis world number one who polled almost twice as many votes as his nearest rival, the triathlete Alistair Brownlee, to win the accolade for the second successive year.
Andy, 29, the first person to retain the trophy, picked up 247,419 votes on the night compared with 121,665 polled by Alistair Brownlee and the 109,197 votes which went to third-placed Nick Skelton, Olympic gold medalwinning show jumper.
Mo Farah, who made history as Britain’s most successful track and field athlete in Rio 2016, only managed fourth place pulling in 50,000 fewer votes. Andy, currently training in Florida, was unable to attend the SPOTY spectacular on Sunday night at the Genting Arena in Birmingham.
Following the announcement of the vote, the trophy was handed to him by former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis as they stood at the side of a hotel pool. Andy first won the coveted award in 2013 and he received the trophy again last year after leading Britain to Davis Cup glory. In the tennis season just finished, he won Wimbledon for a second time, picked up a second Olympic gold medal in Rio and ended the year as world number one for the first time – usurping Novak Djokovic. Murray dedicated the award to his family, mentioning the support they have given him in his most successful year to date. With Judy Murray in the SPOTY audience, Andy said: “I think my mum’s in the crowd there. I want to say thanks for all your help. I want to thank my dad, who just got married 10 days ago. Miss you guys.” He also thanked his wife, Kim Sears, but joked: “I’ve got a bone to pick with her. She told me about an hour ago that she had voted for Nick Skelton. Not smart with Christmas coming up. Hopefully she voted for me as well but I don’t know how that works.”
He continued: “I also want to thank my daughter, who won’t know what this means yet but maybe in a few years she will appreciate it”.
Talking of his life since welcoming daughter Sophia into the world in February, he said: “I’ve loved it. It’s a challenge obviously. At the start, there’s a lot of things to learn.
“It’s a big adjustment but it made me realise tennis isn’t the most important thing any more.
“There is more to life than just my sport. So away from the court I am a lot happier and not really thinking about tennis all the time like I used to.
“And it’s obviously helped my performances on the court.”
The award tops off an amazing 12 months for the Dunblane ace that saw him reach new heights but he admitted the job was getting harder as he gets older.
He said: “I’m away from my family, I’m trying to keep getting better and now that I’ve got to number one, it’s taken a lot of work to get there and I want to try to stay there if I can.
“But it is going to be tough — I am getting older now. A lot of the new guys coming up are really big talents.
“So I’m going to give it my best shot but it’s going to be hard.”