Tour de force! Cycling champ takes sports personality title
BUT IT’S MONGER WHO STEALS THE SHOW AT SPOTY
TOUR de France winner Geraint Thomas unexpectedly triumphed as he was voted the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year last night.
Thomas became the fifth Welsh athlete and fifth cyclist to win the award at a ceremony attended by 11,000 fans and athletes in Birmingham.
England’s World Cup football captain Harry Kane was widely tipped to win, but came third behind Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, who was runner-up.
The 32-year-old Team Sky cyclist became the first Welshman – and only the third Briton – to win the Tour de France in July this year, having previously won two Olympic gold medals.
Speaking on stage after his win, he said: ‘I feel really lucky to have come into cycling at the age I am. I was just going down the local leisure centre going for a swim, then I end up riding a bike.
‘I’d like to thank my wife, she deserves this just as much. I’m really lucky to have her and my family. As a bike rider, I was always focused on myself, but... seeing kids on their bikes back home, you take great pride in winning this. It’s been an amazing year for British sport and long may it continue.’
Kane, the 25-year-old Tottenham forward, was the bookies’ favourite at 7/4, followed by Thomas and Hamilton, who at 33 won his fifth Formula One World Championship this year.
The Mercedes driver won 11 of the 21 races, seeing off nearest challenger Sebastian Vettel by 88 points. He was at 7/2 to win.
The public also voted Thomas this year’s winner over sprinter Dina Asher-Smith, cricketer Jimmy Anderson, and winter Olympian Lizzie Yarnold.
Kirsty Ewen, from Inverness, was the winner of the BBC Get Inspired Unsung Hero award.
Miss Ewen, 28, volunteers at Inverness Swimming Club, the Highland Swim team and Scottish open water events. She received the award after overcoming mental health issues to inspire others to do the same through sport.
PERSONALITY? Here in Birmingham last night it was hard to look beyond Billy Monger. That jaw-dropping moment when he crashed. That spirit. That speech.
The 19-year-old racing driver received the Helen Rollason Award for climbing back behind the wheel less than a year after having both legs amputated but, my word, there was a case for giving a remarkable young man the main prize.
That honour, however, went to Geraint Thomas — and it might well have been another emotionally-charged piece of video footage that clinched it for the Welshman.
A repeat of the interview when Thomas broke down at being told he had just won the Tour de France clearly had an impact on the audience — not least across the Severn Bridge, one imagines.
And one can only speculate as the BBC did not release the voting figures, apparently because SpOTY has now fallen into line with other programmes that call on the views of the public.
Harry Kane came into the show as favourite. But because of that ascent of Alpe d’Huez, and securing a victory all the more impressive because Team Sky were actually set up to deliver Chris Froome to the summit of the mountains as well as the podium in paris, Thomas got the nod ahead of Lewis Hamilton and the England football captain.
‘This is insane,’ said Thomas, who earlier in the day had been presented with a replacement Tour de France trophy that had been stolen — by coincidence from this venue three months ago.
Only days after Sky announced their intention to withdraw their backing of a cycling team whose dominance has been marred by controversy these past two years, Thomas’ crowning moment could have been uncomfortable for the BBC.
But their blushes were spared to some extent by Theresa May, whose own voting story managed to limit Sky to the briefest of mentions earlier in the week.
A new format with a shortlist announced only once provided some extra suspense. When Lizzy Yarnold was revealed as the final name of the ‘sensational six’, viewers discovered Tyson Fury had not made the cut despite being here in Birmingham with his wife. No, a panel of experts who also ignored Anthony Joshua had opted instead for Kane, Dina Asher-Smith, Jimmy Anderson, Thomas, Hamilton and Yarnold, Britain’s greatest winter Olympian. And while the shortlist was agreed by the judges prior to Fury’s recent efforts against Deontay Wilder in Los Angeles, the BBC insisted they could have removed one of the six to make way for the heavyweight. Sound judgment persuaded them to leave it as it was, and once the nominees had made it on to the stage, with Hamilton dazzling the 10,000-strong audience with a quite extraordinary jacket, it was then left to Sir Mo Farah to return with the trophy he won last year. At least he was here this time. Yarnold’s video was first up, the double Olympic gold medallist narrating it herself, before a reminder of Hamilton’s mastery on the racetrack. Hamilton told us he had come a long way since the ‘slums’ of, er, Stevenage.
Thomas and the cricketing Adonis that is Anderson would follow, then Kane and Asher-Smith. Anderson was 250-1 before the show and miles behind Fury, who was fourth favourite. But, again, the judges made a good call.
Fury might not have made the shortlist for the main prize, but he was considered for the award for the Greatest Sporting Moment of the Year and he was also given an opportunity to speak to Gary Lineker on stage.
The boxer who climbed off the canvas after being knocked out cold by Wilder did not, however, win that vote either. Instead it was the last-second victory for the England netball team for the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games.
Tracey Neville’s netballers also won the Team of the Year award, while the resurgence of the England men’s football team under the guidance of Gareth Southgate earned him the Coach of the Year award.
At the World Cup, Southgate admitted he could not listen to
Three Lions for 20 years, so bitter was his personal disappointment at Euro ’96. Last night, he was presented with his award by Frank Skinner, David Baddiel and Ian Broudie.
It came as no surprise to see Francesco Molinari voted the World Sport Star of the Year thanks to his endearing and devastatingly effective Ryder Cup partnership with Tommy Fleetwood and his Open triumph at Carnoustie. It was another award that went to a public — in this case global — vote.
But you want a sporting hero? In the view of this observer, look no further than Monger (left), on the stage last night with the medical staff who saved his life and then back shortly before the close of the show — having been inadvertently cut off earlier by Clare Balding — to pay tribute to his parents.
Lovely stuff.