It’s hard to understand how Sports Personality of the Year shortlists do not include two superstars who made 2024 a great one for cycling
For the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, there was a time when you could vote for anyone you wanted to vote for.
No shortlists, just cut out a coupon and send it in with the name of your most admired sportsman or sportswoman. And then along came Bob Nudd. Who? A four-time world champion, that’s who. An England international for 24 years, that’s who.
In fact, it is fair to say Nudd was one of the country’s greatest ever … anglers. And in 1991, anglers across Great Britain – and there are an awful lot of them – piled in to vote for Nudd as their Sports Personality of the Year.
He ‘won’ by a landslide but the Beeb were not having it. Against competition rules, or competition spirit, or something like that, they said. Liz McColgan was handed the award, with Will Carling and Gary Lineker second and third respectively.
And the days when a relatively unsung sportsman or woman had even a squeak of winning were numbered. The Beeb can be wonderfully inclusive but they also love a bit of stardust.
And so, shortlists were introduced. For a good while, 12 names were on the shortlist but the 2017 edition of the award probably changed that. The winner was Mo Farah, suitably high-profile enough. But it was a close shave for the Beeb, as Jonathan Rea received the next highest number of votes. Again, Rea would have been a worthy winner, having been a Superbike world champion SIX times.
But a lot of sports fans would have trouble recognising the man from Larne, Northern Ireland. Rea has won three world championships since 2017 – remarkably in 2018, 2019 and 2020 – but has not been shortlisted again. Nowadays, it is a six-person shortlist and this year’s names are all worthy inclusions. But why not have a few more?
And then, at least you would not have to omit Mark Cavendish from the shortlist, who deserved to be on it for becoming the Tour de France’s most successful stage winner. Maybe his achievement in setting a new mark of 35 stage wins on the Tour – taking him ahead of Eddy Merckx – will be honoured by a special lifetime award.
Or perhaps the panel ‘invited’ by the BBC to come up with the shortlists decided cycling was no longer high-profile enough. After all, how else can you explain the absence of Tadej Pogacar from the six-strong shortlist for the BBC’s Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year award?
It is utterly bizarre. The Slovenian won the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the World Road Race Championships – the Triple Crown of cycling.
He is quite possibly the finest road cyclist we have ever seen. Yet he could not make the shortlist ahead of Caitlin Clark, the American basketball player who has scored a lot of points for Indiana Fever in the WNBA.
Perhaps Cavendish and Pogacar can mark their memorable years by going on a festive ride together … having somehow been told by the Beeb to get on their bikes.
