BBC letting the bad guys take over Dodge (or SSE Arena*)

I've come home to the news that the BBC journalist Andy West has been suspended because of his comments that he's ashamed of his employers fail to admit their error in giving Tyson Fury a platform on SPOTY. Seeing the coverage that the story has been getting on the BBC over recent days actually rebroadcasting his views unedited and as spoken I feel that Andy West is not the only person to be ashamed.

The BBC brand themselves as Your BBC meaning that it really is "Our BBC". It would appear that in the case of this incident it applies providing you aren't gay or a woman. It must not be forgotten that Fury's comments that he is repeating are both homophobic and misogynistic.


The hosts of SPOTY include Sue Barker, Gabby Logan and Clare Balding. Three strong women who have succeeded in the macho world of sport reporting. The later of course is also married to her same-sex partner. If a gay journalist is ashamed, and Clive Myrie calls him a dickhead live on air how much must these three women (as well as fellow nominee Jessica Ennis-Hill) feel uncomfortable sharing the studio with Fury in 10 days time. Is it right that the BBC allow these women to take part in a live event with a man whose words are clearly set to provoke, who remains unrepentant and continues to accentuate the anguish his initial comments passed with every time he is asked for comment.

The BBC continue to dig a hole for themselves over this issue. Sadly it might well bury the corporation if they are not careful.

*The SSE Arena in Belfast is the venue that will be hosting the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) awards on 20th December.

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2015

It is that time of year again for the nominees for this year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year, following the low point of 2011 when not a single female British sports person made the short list there are four on this year's shortlist, only one less than the Olympic year (when there were 12 nominees) but the most in the now traditional 10 person shortlist.

So who are they:

Gareth Bale the Welsh international, had a successful first season for Real Madrid which saw him scoring the winning goal in the Copa del Rey, the second of his team's four goals in the Champions League final in the first city derby final, the first time a Welshman had scored in that match. At the start of this season he helped his team lift their third trophy in his time with his team when his assist led to to Cristiano Ronaldo's goal in their 2-0 win the UEFA Super Cup. The last footballer to win was Ryan Giggs in 2009 the sport has five wins.

Charlotte Dujardain of "dancing horses" fame, didn't get nominated in 2012 despite her double gold and Olympic record performances on Valegro. She followed this up with double gold in Individual and Spécial Dressage in last year's European Championships, but this year became the first British Equestrian to hold Olympic, European and World Titles simultaneously when she and Valegro again combined for the double of Individual and Special Dressage. The last equestrian (not racing) to win was Zara Philips in 2006 Olympic Equestrian events have three wins none in dressage.

Carl Froch in boxing since 2006 with exception of 2 periods that total about 12 months has held one of other of the world titles at Super-Middleweight. However, despite those years of success this is the first time that he has been nominated for SPoTY, other boxers of course have been nominated in a sport that we have a good history of. The last boxer to win was Joe Calzaghe in 2007 the sport has five wins.

Kelly Gallagher is the visually impaired Paralympian skier who took Great Britain's first ever Winter Paralympic gold medal along with her guide Charlotte Evans in the Women's Super-G. She comes from my home town of Bangor. No Paralympian has ever won SPoTY, the nearest any have come is Tanni Grey-Thompson who was third in 2000. No skier has ever won, the last Winter Sports win was in 1984 for Jayne Torville and Christopher Dean.

Lewis Hamilton has twice stood on the second step of the SPoTY podium on his debut season in F1 matching his position in the drivers' championship that year. The following year when he won the championship he again came 2nd in SPoTY. This year marks his second F1 title during which he took 11 wins making him the most successful British winner with 33 wins in total, which included two runs of five and four consecutive wins. The last Formula 1 driver to win was Damon Hill in 1996 the sport has six winners.

Rory McIllroy makes it two for residents of North Down in the top 10 this year. Rory secured back to back golfing majors when he picked up the Open and PGA Championship. By lifting the Claret Jug at Royal Liverpool he became only the second player in Open history to lift the silver medal for low amateur and then the main prize. In so doing he became the first European to win three of the four majors, and joins only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods in doing so before the age of 25. In between the two majors he also picked up his first World Golf Championship event and return to world number one. The last golfer to win was Nick Faldo in 1989 the sport has two winners.

Jo Pavey proved that motherhood and age are no barrier to being a successful athlete. Ten months after giving birth to her second child and just over a month shy of her 41st birthday she became the oldest woman to win a European Athletics title in the 10,000m, going one place better in Zurich that 2 years earlier in Helsinki. She had earlier in the month taken bronze in the Commonwealth Games 5,000m. The last athlete to win was Kelly Holmes in 2004 the sport is the most successful in SPoTY history with 17 wins.

Adam Peaty is the new golden boy of British swimming. First he took gold in 100m breastroke and 4x100m medley, and silver in 50m breaststoke at the Commonwealth Games (both wins in Games Records). Within 10 days he was in Berlin at the European Championships taken four golds in the three disciplines from the commonwealth plus the 4x100 mixed medley. He also secured two world records in the 50m and the mixed relay with Jemma Lowe, Chris walker-Hebborn and Fran Halsall. The last swimmer to win was Anita Lonsborough in 1962 the sport has two winners.

Max Whitlock the gymnast kicked off a very successful year at the European Championship with Pommel Gold and Team Silver. Before taking five medals at the Commonwealth Games All Around, Team and Floor Gold, Pommel Silver and Parallel Bars Bronze. But in qualification at the world in Nanjing he seemed to have failed, not qualifying for any apparatus finals, nor the individual. But after the team competition Nile Wilson had to withdrawal from the all-around. Max who was third in the GB team qualifying stepped up putting his poor qualification behind him, performed well on all six pieces to take silver behind the five time world champion Kohei Uchimura. No Gymnast have ever won the closest was Beth Tweddle coming third in 2006.

Lizzy Yarnold is a women who throws herself literally head first into her sport. For she is the most successful female winter Olympian in what is fast becoming GBs most successful Winter Olympic Sport. For the fourth games in a row the female skeleton team have medalled and for the second time in a row it is gold. Lizzy entered Sochi as favourite having secured the Skeleton World Cup Title winning four of the eight races. No Skeleton racer has ever won and the last Winter Sports winners were Torville and Dean in 1984.

Sports Personality of the Year: Announcement live blog #SPOTY

From 7pm this evening I will live blogging the BBC Sports personalities of the year as they are announced. However, after last years highs and trying to work out who would make the final 10 from the wealth of achievements this year it may be somewhat easier.

But who is likely to be in the list.

Well Wimbledon has a British gentlemen's singles champion so Andy Murray is bound to be there. Chris Froome won everything that last year's winner Bradley Wiggins did so expect him there too. Also from the world of cycling there is Becky James who rose from being the understudy for Victoria Pendleton to winning the World Championships in the sprint and keirin. AP McCoy has reached the landmark of 4000 national hunt winners and having been nominated numerous times in the past he is likely to feature again. There was success as the World Athletics Championships with Mo Farah repeating his Olympic golden double and Christine Ohuruogu setting the national record and one again showing she is a big stage competitor. Sir Ben Ainslie may not have brought the America's Cup back to Great Britain but he instrumental in the turnaround that saw Oracle Team USA retain the trophy when he came onboard as tactician. Max Whitlock was second in the all around European Gymnastics Championships and took silver in the Pommel at the worlds as well as being just off the podium in the all around missing out by 0.3 marks from a podium.

More to come from 7pm when we know who is actually there.

19:01 The first names to be announced are:

Sir Ben Ainslie: Sir Ben left behind his Olympic Career last year as a nominee in the 2012 SPOTY awards. He was initially only part of Team Oracle USA as the skipper of the test boat to race against the holders to gain race craft in the speedy catamarans that swept across San Francisco Bay. But from race 6 with the holders having lost five of the first six races he was brought into the crew as the new tactician. They lost the next two but were more competitive and then won two which because of a 2 point penalty meant they were only on 1 to the challengers 6 before Team New Zealand took another two wins, leaving them on the cusp of victory. But then in one of the greatest comebacks in sporting history 8 successive wins saw the team that Ben was now part of win the series.

Ian Bell: The England Cricketer scored centuries in the second innings of the first Ashes Test in the Summer and in the first innings of the second test. This made him only the fourth English batsman to score hundreds in 3 consecutive Ashes tests. He missed out on one in the thrid test but got another in the fourth. He was top scorer of the series with 582 and 75 fours in that number with an average of 62.44. None of the Australians managed more than one century

Hannah Cockcroft: Despite a brilliant Paralympics in 2012 Hannah didn't make the 12 strong short list for last year's SPOTYs. But in the World Paralympian Championships in Lyon she retained her T34 100m and 200m titles (the ones she had won in London 2012) from the 2011 Worlds. She has now gone double gold at the last three major championships at these distances as well as the holding the 100m world record (which she took in the Olympic Stadium and bettered later in 2012).

Mo Farah: How can someone follow two memorable Saturday nights in the Olympic Stadium in London. Well if your name is Mo Farah you do it by becoming only the second many in history to hold both the Olympic and World Championship double of 5000m and 10,000m. One other thing he also did this year was take away the 28 year old British 1500m record while the holder Steve Cram was commentating and a previous fastest Brit Seb Coe was watching.

Chris Froome: This year was the year for Chris Froome to emerge from the shadows of his team mate and last year's SPOTY winner Bradley Wiggins. He followed Brad as the winner of the Critérium du Dauphiné, Tour de Romandie, Tour de France, he also won the Critérium International in the year to match the Paris-Nice title that Wiggins also won last year. But a poor performance in the World Championships where not a single British cyclist finished may have knocked some of the lustre of his glorious emergence from the shadows. However, the winner of the 100th Tour de France did so with more individual flare than his predecessor winning on the road and having to defend his first day in yellow on his own.

19:23 and the rest are:

Leigh Halfpenny: The Welsh Full Back scared a try in the opening game defeat to Ireland. But was named man of the match in the six nations tests against France and Italy and with 40% of the international panels vote was name man of the tournament. He went on to the British Lions Tour of Australia where he appeared in all three tests. He scored 49 of the Lions 79, a record for a series and his 21 points in the third test is a record for a single Lions test. He was again named player of the series, but isn't solely looking for SPOTY glory he is also on the shortlist of 5 for IRB international player of the year.

AP McCoy: The jockey from Moneyglass is a previous SPOTY winner, in 2010 the year that he finally won his first Grand National. But that is only one race on the way to the record that he broke earlier this month. On 7 November he was saddled up in his retainer JP McManus's colours on Mountain Tunes at Weatherby it may have only been a novices hurdle race, but when the famous green and yellow colours crossed the line their jockey became the first national hunt jockey to record 4000 wins.

Andy Murray: His tennis year started at the Australian Open by making his third consequtive Grand Slam final recording his first Grand Slam win over Roger Federer in the semi-finals. But he lost to Novak Djokovic in the final to ominously tie Stefan Edberg's record of being three time runner up on the open era. But he is on the list for what he did in the grass court season, he was out with injury for the French Open but came back to win his third title at Queen's but it was at Wimbledon that he ended 83 years of waiting for a home grown men's singles champion that probably makes him favourite for this years award.

Christine Ohuruogu:While Mo Farah may have taken a 28 year old British record Christine went one further in the World Championships. Last year she only managed silver in the Olympics while trying to defend her title. But she came out strong this year and breaking 50 seconds outside of major championships. The record finally came in the World Final and the 49.41s with a dip for the line was enough to give her a second World Championship title some six years after her previous one a feat never before emulated by a British woman.

 

Justin Rose: Becoming the third US Open champion golfer to be nominated for SPOTY in four years. He is the first English player to win a golf major since 1996. But golfers have not been able to stir the SPOTY voters enough to win since 1989.
 

Well the important one out of three ain't bad

The evening that Gary Lineker announced the 10 nominees I stuck my neck out and made my predictions.

3 Rory McIlroy

2 Alastair Cook

1 Mark Cavendish

So I may have got the runners up wrong but at least I was right about the British public for a change.

As for what I said about the runners up. I ruled out Darren Clarke making the top three as he wasn't the best golfer on the list, but like in 2006 he was the runner up on a purely emotional vote. I knew that Mo Farah would score highest of the two athletes, but I was expecting the hero of the Ashes to be battling with Cav for the top spot. From the cheers in the studio at the start of the evening I thought that was definitely the case.

Thankfully it wasn't and Cav won. He started as he always starts a winning interview appearing to be shy. But soon got stuck in thanking the teams that help make him great who look after him and get him towards the line where he then sprints for the line.

Surprisingly considering the success of British cycling in recent years the Manx Missile is only the third British cyclist to win BBC's Sports Personality of the Year following our other road race world Champion Tommy Simpson in 1965 and Sir Chris Hoy in 2008.

However, Cav did point out that the success of British cycling is leading to more people taking to two wheels more often:

"Now I see so many people out riding bikes, commuting to work or doing it as a hobby, they can see what it's like to ride."

Sadly it comes in the year that the first cyclist to be killed on the roads of London had in the past been part of the Sports Personality of the Year shows. Gary Mason the boxer was a name I think was missing from the sports people who had lost their lives this year in the tribute just before the final award.

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.

Updated with predictoins: Sports Personality of the Year 2011

This evening the shortlist for the SPOTY are being unveiled on BBC's The One Show. Once Gary Linekar announces who they will I shall be listing their reasons for the nomination and their chances IMHO of how they will do.

Mo Farrah was, for me, actually a surprising omission from the 2010 short list when he won double gold in the 5000m and 10,000m at the European Championships. This year at the world he won gold in 5000m after achieving a silver in the 10,000m. He also won gold in the European Indoor 5000m this year. For a distance runner to keep winning this is an outstanding achievement.

Andrew Strauss the England Cricket captain who in the winter became only the third England captain to have lead the team to victory in the Ashes both Home and Away in the winter tour. The team made innings of over 500 in four of the test. In the first test there 517-1 (Strauss being the man out stumped for the first time in a test for 100) came too late in the day. But the 644 in the last test was an England record on Australian soil. Although he did make his 19th Test Century and his 6000th test run it wasn't his greatest personal series.

Dai Greene the Welsh hurdler like Mo Farrah was absent from last year's list. He'd won the 400m hurdles both in the European and Commonwealth championships. So this year to top it he won the Worlds, pulling through on a strong field in the home straight. He's also earlier in the year won a time of 45.82 in Birmingham which is second only to Kriss Akabushi in the UK record books.

Rory McIlroy the young Northern Irish golfer looked set to lead the Master from start to finish before shanking his tees shot on the 10th having led for 3½ rounds. Having shot the worse losing round for a leader in the Masters he then in the next Major the U.S. Open led from the start again. He went into the final day already holding several records. This time he didn't add that of choker as he scored the lowest aggregate score by some 4 shots in U.S. Open history. In the P.G.A. he hurt his wrist playing against a tree trunk, but played on. However, in his next four tournaments he was always in the top 3. He won the Shanghai Masters the richest tournament in the world and ends the year World Number 2 behind another of those shortlisted.

Andy Murray the Scot started the year with his second Grand Slam final, but lost the final to Novak Djoković. He was beaten in the semi-final of the other three Slams. But in the Autumn had an good swing winning four out of five tournaments in the run up to the World Tour Finals, overtaking Roger Federer to World Number 3 on the way. But he was forced to retire hurt from the London season ender and Rog jumped over him again.

Alastair Cook in the very successful tour of Australia managed to become the second highest ever England run scorer in a series with 766 (only Wally Hammond 80 years earlier scored more in a series), including 3 centuries. His 235 not out in the first test (his first test double century) at the Gabba beat the record of Don Bradman. He was man of the series in Australia. He took over the One Day International captaincy for the summer. He secured a 3-2 series win over Sri Lanka, and he again was man of the series. In the test series against India he came within 6 runs of his first test triple century.


Darren Clarke the second Northern Irish golfer in the shortlist. The elder statesman of Northern Irish golf. Who was most famous for his 2007 emotional return to competitive golf after the death of his wife Heather. Nobody was talking about Darren as an Open hopeful. His compatriots Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell were being talked about. He hadn't made the top ten of any major since 2001. However, after his 20th Attempt he finally won the Claret jug and for the first time since 1910 a country other than the USA had won back to back Majors.

Amir Khan last December just before SPOTY Amir defended his Light Welterweight title for a third time. This year saw firstly a defence against the Irishman Paul McCloskey who had been unbeaten in 22 fights but it was another defence for Amir after a TKO in the 6th. His only other fight of the year was against the IBF champion Zab Judah in an unification bout. In the 5th Amir landed a knockout blow to the belt and walked away with the two belts. He'll be fighting American Lamont Paterson on 10 December before SPOTY takes place.

Mark Cavendish the Manx sprinter was on this list last year. This year he wore the leader's jersey in the Giro d'Italia for one stage, having won the first stage and two others. He also won the Olympic trial event the London Surrey Classic and two stages on the Tour of Britian, leading for the first two days and on points for the first three. But of course the reason he is nomiated is as the first British man to win the Green Jersey of the Tour de France with yet another five stages and also the World Championships in Denmark. Meaning next year when he isn't leading on points he'll be in the rainbow jersey, the first Brit since 1965.

Luke Donald secured the PGA money list title, currently also leads the European Tour Money list and is the world number one ahead of two other UK golfers. In February he won the Accenture Match Play Title beaten the eventual world number one in the final. He also reached the final of the Volve World Match Play Championship a win would have made him world number one, but after 14 straight match play wins he lost. However, when he beat Lee Westwood in a play-off for the European PGA title he overtook him to be world number one. In all he won four titles in the year.

So this year's list contains No women!!, three golfers (two of whom are Northern Irish, two cricketers, two athletes (a long distance runner and a hurdler) a cyclist, a boxer, an a tennis player. Two Northern Irish, a Scot, a Welshman, a Manxman and five Englishmen.

So who is going to win?

I'm ruling out Strauss as he isn't even the best Cricketer in the list and the same applies to Darren although it was good for him to win the Open, he is only the third best golfer in Northern Ireland and third best in this list, although a big personality. I'm also going to rule out Andy Murray again this year, although he is winning titles he is not world number one, nor won a major title which everyone else left is.

When it comes to the athletes there is pure gold, ok Mo has one silver. But to have run almost ½ of a marathon with the 5000m heats he for me has the slight edge, not that Dai Greene's acheivements have not been outstanding.

The two remaining golfers are Mr Consistent in Donald against the man who has had us on the edge of our seats so often this season in McIlroy. They may well by number one and two in the world but it is the way that have dealt with expectations this year. Rory has led 7 rounds of the Majors this year won one and had 5 other top three finishes, Luke has carried on strongest in match play events but also has was a play-off while Rory has lost a couple. Objectively I'd like to say that Luke edges this contest, but it seems that everyone loves Rory's story, the comeback from the Master's to the US Open. However, with three golfers in the mix that vote may be split too much for any of them to win.

Amir Khan is trying to be the fifth boxer to win the title, following Cooper (twice) McGuigan, Lewis and Calzaghe. He has picked up a second belt this year and been dominant in all his games since he was last considered. In some years he may well have stood a chance but there are others who will certainly beat him; one of the golfers, one of the athletes deserve to, but there is no split boxing vote and last time a boxer won another Ricky Hatton came third.

However, I think the real contest is between Alastair Cook and Mark Cavendish. The last time a Brit won the World Cycling Road Race Championships he also took SPOTY and that was without winning much of note that year. But in a sport like cycling at which Britain has excelled in recent years Cavendish has risen to the very top this year. Cook similarly has shun in a year in which those who play his sport have been reasonably successful, we'll forget the limited overs matches in Australia.

The same argument can be made about both that they wouldn't win without their team. But Cook certainly has to be the one to face each ball he faces and there have been a lot of them this year, and Cav wouldn't have teams working so flat out for him, controlling grand tours or the GB guys the World Championship if they didn't know that he could put in the acceleration that would defeat anyone else in the world. Indeed there were times that Cavendish's team lead outs didn't go as planned and he still won, including the World Champs.

That is why my top three this year is:

• 3 Rory McIlroy
• 2 Alastair Cook
• 1 Mark Cavendish