LISTEN, we all know Emma Raducanu is nailed on for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award — and so she absolutely should be.
But after a shortlist (with an emphasis on the ‘short’) which failed to include Britain’s greatest ever sportsman Sir Lewis Hamilton, after arguably his most impressive year, are the Beeb actively trying to sink their own flagship?
We can talk until the cows come home about how the SPOTY show is not what it used to be, given the BBC’s dwindling sports portfolio.
And we can bang on about whether the word ‘personality’ should even be included, when personality has rarely been a factor.
We can argue that it’s a programme watched by your Nanna, rather than genuine sports fans. Or that it always was a messy apples-and-oranges comparison business.
And, yes, nobody seems able to get anything right any more.
The FIA can’t run a motor race, Uefa can’t run a Champions League draw and our Government certainly can’t run a country.
Yet the idea of crowning the nation’s sportsperson of the year remains a worthy one.
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It’s an idea that still matters. And which the BBC ought to try and get right.
That means Hamilton should clearly be on the ballot.
There is nothing the British love more than a gracious, glorious, hard-done-by loser. And British Nannas love them more than most.
Hamilton was gracious, glorious and hard-done-by when robbed of a record eighth world title in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
He is the only British sportsman who can claim to be the greatest of all-time in a major worldwide sport.
He was part of an exhilarating rivalry with Max Verstappen which revived flagging interest in Formula One.
And if we really are considering the idea of ‘personality’ then Hamilton — a two-time SPOTY winner — has shown more of that quality than ever in the past 12 months, as an outspoken campaigner on human rights issues, often antagonising his sport’s bosses.
If you really believe the BBC are ‘woke’ then how do you square Hamilton’s omission from a list of just six names, which normally extends into double figures?
This was a very good year for British sport with a successful Olympics, England reaching a first major football final since 1966 and Raducanu’s US Open triumph, surely the most astonishing British sporting achievement ever.
It certainly wasn’t one of those barren ‘let’s just give it to Princess Anne or one of her children’ years.
But after Raducanu, are any of the other five SPOTY contenders more worthy than Hamilton?
Tyson Fury had one fight in 2021 and won it less convincingly than we thought he would.
He has also served a drug ban, is connected to a suspected crime lord and doesn’t want to be considered for the award anyway.
Raheem Sterling had an excellent Euros but spent much of the year struggling to get into Manchester City’s starting line-up for the biggest matches.
Tom Daley was a great story but he finally struck Olympic diving gold in a synchronised event — and I bet you can’t even remember the name of the bloke he was synchronising with? It definitely takes two to synchronise.
Adam Peaty became the first British swimmer to retain an Olympic title. But is he more worthy than several other Team GB members, especially the cycling spouses Jason and Laura Kenny?
Or does Peaty make the cut because your Nanna has recently been ogling him in tight sequined trousers on Strictly Come Dancing?
Dame Sarah Storey is hugely inspiring but comparing any paralympian with those not living with a disability is probably the ultimate in apples-and-oranges.
Anyway, maybe the Beeb just made a deliberate Horlicks of this shortlist so we’d all get talking about it.
Maybe they’ll regard this debate as proof that SPOTY is still relevant.
But while Hamilton has more significant injustices to contend with, his omission will make the public vote a sham.
Fools’ rules
SPORT must have rules, or else football would still be a medieval Pancake Day free-for-all between two villages — lasting all day and with umpteen murders.
But do you watch sport for entertainment, or treat it with deadly seriousness, demandng ultimate justice?
While Formula One race director Michael Masi clearly got it wrong allowing Max Verstappen his chance to land the world title in a final-lap run-off in Abu Dhabi, his instincts were laudable.
As Masi said to Mercedes chief Toto Wolff: “It’s called a motor race . . . we went motor racing.”
Masi surely can’t survive Sunday’s chaos but at least he sounds like a decent sort of bloke to have a pint with.
REMEMBER how VAR was going to remove most controversies from football and allow us to enjoy Match of the Day without them obsessing over endless penalty decisions? How’s that idea going?
‘Havin a stinker
WHEN Andrey Arshavin played for Arsenal he told us: “If I had it in my power to introduce a ban on women driving cars and to withdraw all their licences, I would do it without thinking twice.”
I tell you what, though, if women had performed yesterday’s Champions League draw, instead of Arshavin and a couple of Uefa blazers, they would not have botched it to such an extent that they’d need a redraw.
And I bet they wouldn’t keep blaming ‘the software’ either.
NEWCASTLE needed a manager who would sort out their defence — both before and after they hit the transfer market for the January sales.
Instead they plumped for Eddie Howe, who used to get patted on the head by Pep Guardiola for playing expansive football every time his Bournemouth team got humped by Manchester City at the Etihad.
Newcastle’s 4-0 stuffing by Leicester suggests little has changed.
Teflon Joe’s KO
JOE ROOT is the first Englishman to fail to win The Ashes in his first two attempts as captain and still get a third stab at the job.
So for Root to select the wrong team for the First Test, to win the toss and bat when the conditions screamed ‘bowl!’ — and then to claim he’d make the same decisions all over again — suggests he is very lucky to be in post.
Root is a great batsman but his captaincy has rarely cut the mustard.
England have won one of their last ten Tests and that is likely to read one in 14 by the end of this series.
Teflon Joe is as non-stick as England’s slip cordon.
THERE are many theories on deciding who should captain a football team.
Usually on the Continent, the armband simply goes to the most-experienced or longest-serving player. Here, it’s often the shoutiest player.
And there’s a general consensus that a centre-back or central midfielder is best-placed, positionally, to skipper a side.
Meanwhile, at Arsenal, they are trying to decide whether or not the captaincy should remain with a player who often doesn’t turn up for work on time — and who doesn’t always look very interested when he does.
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