A gender balanced Sports Personality of the Year Shsortlist #BBCfail Updated

Yesterday I posted about how the BBC had managed to produce their Sports Personality of the Year list without including a single woman. Today I'm going to produce a gender balanced list of champions, looking at some of the criteria of the all-male list, I have the double World medalist, the emotional champion winning year, the complete dominance of her sport, the inspirational captain and the one who's put disappointment aside in a preferred event to succeed elsewhere.

Mo Farrah

Rebecca Adlington like Mo Farrah above came back from the Worlds with a gold and silver medal. Only see got gold in her longer event the 800m and silver in the 400m. She had also tried to compete in the 200m, but as the result of failing to make the semis in Shanghai has decided to concentrate on just her two gold medal defences for next year.

Rory McIlroy

Beth Tweddle well if the English Cricket Captain can make the all male top ten I'm putting Beth in there. She may not have won any world titles this year but she did inspire the GB women's team to 5th place overall, their highest ever position. She put in possibly her last world level uneven bars routine to lead the way with 15.666 and made the apparatus final in the floor. A mistake in qualifying meant that Tweddle didn't make the uneven bars final but in the team competition she showed she is still the best.

Mark Cavendish

Chrissie Williamson while Cav produces the sprint finish how would you like to swim 2.4km, cycle 112 miles then run a full marathon. Now do that against the best in the world and for a fourth time cross the line first. But for illness last year she may well have been celebrating her fifth in a row. Yeah talk about rowing Sir Steve Redgrave only won his SPOTY after five Olympic Titles four years apart (okay there were Worlds in between). Chrissie has dominated the world Ironman scene for the last five years. Surprisingly I don't recall any of our world class Triathlon competitors being short listed for SPOTY.

Alastair Cook

Victoria Pendleton may have lost her World Sprint Title earlier in the year for the first time since 2006 but came back in the Europeans to take two of the five golds in what should be Team GB&NIs star event next summer. The set back of failing to get to the medal rounds of her favoured sprints once again didn't deter Vicky who won Gold in the Kerin and Team Sprint.

Luke Donald

Sarah Stevenson is a World Taekwando champion. Building on her bronze in Beijing she was working towards greater heights in London next year. However, this year she lost her mother in January of a terminal condition and her father to a tumour 3 months later. Therefore it was an emotional performance dedicated to her absent parents that lifted Gold in Korea last month.

Update According to the BBC here is a full list of those nominated by the main newspapers plus Zoo and Nuts. Where were the votes from Cosmo or Prima.

Here is the rundown of actual nominations, in order of nominations, from a largely male press core o 27 publications:

27 Rory McIlroy (Golf) 


26 Darren Clarke (Golf)


25 Mo Farah (Athletics)


23 Mark Cavendish (Cycling) 23


18 Alastair Cook (Cricket)


17 Dai Greene (Athletics)


14 Andy Murray (Tennis); Andrew Strauss (Cricket)


11 Luke Donald  (Golf)


7 Amir Khan (Boxing)


6 Rebecca Adlington (Swimming); Jenson Button (Motorsport) 6


5 Alastair Brownlee (Triathlon); Keri-Anne Payne (Swimming); Graeme Swann  (Cricket)


4 James Anderson (Cricket); Stuart Broad (Cricket) 4; Sam Warburton (Rugby Union) 



3 Carl Froch (Boxing); Scott Parker (Football); Sarah Stevenson (Taekwando); Sam Tomkins (Rugby League); Sam Waley-Cohen (Horse Racing); Chrissie Wellington (Triathlon)




2 Kath Grainger (Rowing); Victoria Pendleton (Cycling) 2





1 Nicola Adams (Boxing); Ben Ainslie (Sailing); Gareth Bale (Football); Ian Bell (Cricket); Dmitri Berbatov (Football); Glen Chapple (Cricket); Hannah England (Athletics); Jessica Ennis (Athletics); Dario Franchetti (Motorsport); George Groves (Boxing); Lewis Hamilton (Motorsport); Tony McCoy (Horseracing); George North (Rugby Union); Shanaze Reade (BMX); Stef Reid (Paralympic Athlete); Jamie Roberts (Rugby Union); Wayne Rooney (Football); Paul Scholes (Football); Louis Smith (Gymnastics); Yaya Toure (Football); Jonathan Trott (Cricket); Judd Trump (Snooker); Hayley Turner (Horse Racing); Patrick Viera (Football); David Weir (Football)




So there were a total of just 12 women nominated from 51 names put forward. I'll work out the breakdown by sport later but there seems to be quite a chunk of the England Cricket team.