mark cavendish
darren clarke
alastair cooke
luke donald
mo farah
dai greene
amir khan
rory mclroy
andy muuray
andrew strauss

only 1 winner for me, cavendish. bit disappointed to see 3 golfers and 2 cricketers in there when they could have included someone like the triathlete brownlee. still at least theres no footballers in the list. sam tomkins picked up a few nominations from the individual newspapers and mags that come up with the final list. you can see who voted for who on the beeb website

Darren Clarke for me - think the whole of Golf cheered when he won the Open.

Andy Murray being nominated again is for me a travesty. He will never win SPOTY until at least he wins a Grand Slam, and even then his negative style and brat-like behaviour divides Britain so much he still might lose.

I'd like Farah to win for sheer effort and determination to improve but can't see it.

England RU to win team of the year??

Voted for by "A range of sports experts from newspapers and magazines across the UK", including Nuts and Zoo!!! Really!?

It's the Manchester Evening News list which to me makes a mockery of the process.

James Anderson
Dimitar Berbatov
Darren Clarke
Glen Chapple
Rory McIlroy
Keri-Anne Payne
Paul Scholes
Andrew Strauss
Yaya Toure
Patrick Vieira

Berbatov and Vieira - Seriously?



Agree with Kerri-Anne Payne though - IMO our best Sportsperson at the moment. Dominating her sport.

Our heroic cricketing team are shockingly under-represented, half of the people on that list don't even compete in "sports".

Cavendish for me.

Darren Clarke - Won the Open. Great story but......only one winner for me.....

Mark Cavendish - Won the Road Cycling World Championships (only 2nd ever Brit to do this), Won the Green jersey at the worlds largest annual sporting event - the Tour de France (winning six stages along the way).

cavendish all the way for me too. established himself as the worlds best known cyclist.

second and third between dai green and mo farah

team of the year will be england cricket.

coach Brian Mcdermott. (seriously)

Cooke would probably have won it if the Ashes series hadnt mainly been held in 2011. Just too long ago.

Lot of outrage on social networking sites about the lack of women on the short-list

I agree, extreme ironing is woefully under-represented.

The heroic cricketing team that's just had its backside handed to it on a plate out in India you mean?



If Andy Murray's on due to winning a couple of events but nothing significant, shouldn't Jenson Button also be included? He's won the odd race in 2011.

rory mcilroy by a country mile. he is odds on with the bookies

That's not like you Andy, finding the negative in something.

Anyway, it's the England team that handed India it's backside and is world ranked number 1 in two out of the three formats that are being talked about

of the 10 on the final list, amir khan got the lowest amount of votes(7) from the media. jenson button was just outside this with 6

by the way the manchester evening news vote was ridiculous - either take it seriously or don't vote at all. it is a disgrace to their readership and i hope they are chastised for it - numpties

Which women should/could have been included? Payne would have made sense, but outside of that I'm struggling to think of anyone. If Ennis had retained her title she'd have been a definite, but as it is her inclusion would have been greated with cries of "tokenism".

Ennis should be included anyway, just so her bum is shown on the show.

Chrissie Wellington was the one I thought of straightaway although Alistair Brownlee should be on the list ahead of her. Sarah Stevenson has had a remarkably successful year in the face of adversity but it's unlikely to have appeared on the radar of most people choosing nominees.

The problem with women's sport is that, apart from those who take part in it, nobody gives a monkey's for it.

Its like Rugby League outside the heartlands. People always bleat on about how great the amateur game is doing, and how it is flourishing, when, in reality, it is only those playing who care for it - Spectator-wise, its one man and his dog.

Yep, bad timing for this award I guess. His heroics were too late for the nominations last year and, as you say, a bit too long ago for this year. Not that I think they'll be too upset about that.

bumping this up ahead of tommorrows awards

must have been a flaw in the bbc computer system since they moved to manchester. someone who deserves it actually won this year. well done cav, now for the Olympics

here's the breakdown of the vote if anyone's interested

Mark Cavendish 169,152 (49.47%)
Darren Clarke 42,188 (12.34%)
Mo Farah 29,780 (8.71%)
Luke Donald 23,854 (6.98%)
Andy Murray 18,754 (5.48%)
Andrew Strauss 17,994 (5.26%)
Alastair Cook 13,038 (3.81%)
Rory McIlroy 11,915 (3.48%)
Dai Greene 9,022 (2.64%)
Amir Khan 6,262 (1.83%)

My first thought is that despite the BBC attempting to jazz this event up it has become a sterile event. I remember BBS SPOTY of years past which were enjoyable events. Fun demonstrations, poking fun at sport etc etc. I think that the numbers of people voting represents a serious drop in people watching as a result.

My 2nd thought is 'YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS - get in there Cav'. Great result for cycling in the UK. A road racer winning SPOTY is fantastic. And an added bonus for me having been betting on him to win since June. Kerching!!