It’s Just a Personality Contest
In 2007, it was so obvious that Lewis Hamilton was going to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. No one had seen such a stunning start to a sporting career, and he had reinvigorated plenty of Briton’s interest in motor racing.
Then Joe Calzaghe started punching his way into the public’s hearts, and everyone forgot about their F1 hero. He finished up second, but who ever remembers second place in this kind of competition?
The question is, can Hamilton make it this year? He’s well on his way to a maiden championship title, with only one real rival for it. He’s been winning all over the place, featured in all the newspapers, handing out some awards, and generally increasing his popularity.
Granted Lewis also left the country and bemoaned being famous, but that doesn’t seem to have damaged his status too much.
The problem with this year is a small little thing called the Olympics. Our athletes won our highest medal tally for over 100 years, and we brought home plenty of lovely gold.
With the Games fresh in our minds, and lingering due to our hosting duties in 2012, it’s highly likely that Mr Hamilton will be usurped again. I’m not a betting expert, and the bracketed odds are bound to change, but the BBC list swimming champ Rebecca Adlington (2-1), cyclist Chris Hoy (5-2) and sailor Ben Ainslie (20-1) amongst those in with a chance. Hamilton (5-2) is right up there with the best of them.
Personally, I was thinking about voting for Olympic Cyclist Bradley Wiggins, if only because his nickname is The Wiggler. Bradley ‘The Wiggler’ Wiggins. Can’t really ask for more, can you?
There’s also Andy Murray, who’s been on top tennis form this year. But he’s not really very good at winning friends and influencing people, so I’m not sure whether to encourage him or not. I do have until the 14th December to decide, of course.
As it stands, there have been six Formula 1 wins: Stirling Moss, Jackie Stewart, and two each for Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill. I’m sure Hamilton will want to add his name to the list, but it’s a tough year with so much competition. If he wins this year’s championship title, though, it might boost his odds just that little bit.
It’s not all about odds though, as the public get the vote and the final say. Us Brits are known to be quite a fickle bunch as well (who me?), so in the three months Lewis has left to make an impression, anything could happen.
September 18th, 2008 at 3:50 pmKeith Collantine said:
Pointless conspiracy theory: BBC will rig the voting in Hamilton’s favour because they’ve got the F1 next year.
Actual prediction: some Olympics person will probably win. Yawn.
September 18th, 2008 at 3:51 pmme said:
well, he is quite hard done by when it comes to stewards decisions / governing body bias (or so i’ve heard). maybe that’ll swing the public vote his way?
September 18th, 2008 at 3:53 pmme said:
i like that idea.
best thing about sports personality of the year… the beeb are allowed some of this year’s f1 video footage and they get to overdub james allen with david croft. worth watching for that bit alone.
September 18th, 2008 at 3:59 pmChristine said:
Yes, but it’ll only be three minutes long, they can only play it once in any 24 hour period, not on any news-only channel, and it’ll still cost £10,000.
That’s usually how it works.
September 18th, 2008 at 4:01 pmme said:
oh you big cynic.
sadly tis true
September 18th, 2008 at 4:09 pmKris said:
Surely they’ll pick the gobby swimmer won’t they? (Apologies to the gobby swimmer whose name I can’t remember) I didn’t even think it would be close. Do you guys know something I don’t?
September 18th, 2008 at 4:13 pmChristine said:
Only that it seemed obvious last year and really wasn’t.
And isn’t 5-2 better than 2-1? Course odds change all the time, but if Hamilton wins, that will be fresher in people’s minds come December.
September 18th, 2008 at 4:39 pmMike said:
There’s no way on earth Lewis will win over one of the Olympic ‘heroes’. The smart money would be on Adlington or Hoy, Lewis will have to come back and win the WDC next year to be in with a chance. He should’ve won it last year, i found it funny that Joe Calzaghe slated the BBC so much for losing the year before and dismissed the competition then is all thankfull when he wins.
I think we got more chance of Lewis winning the strictly come dancing then the personality award this year.
Shame though.
September 18th, 2008 at 4:45 pmme said:
see, now you’re just giving vodafone ideas.
September 18th, 2008 at 4:49 pmMike said:
Oh don’t, my girlfriend works for Vodafone. It’s bad enough her raving about him 24/7 due to hs new fitness ‘photoshoot’. If she saw him in the flesh i might as well pack up home!
September 18th, 2008 at 4:58 pmme said:
how can she like a man who wears his shoes on his hands?
actually, maybe that’s where i’ve been going wrong?
September 18th, 2008 at 5:12 pmMike said:
God knows how she can, i drew the line at her getting a poster
September 18th, 2008 at 5:42 pmAlsorans said:
While it would be quite interesting to see if Henry Cooper could drive an F1 car, especially after going 12 rounds with Muhammad Ali, I think you meant Jackie Stewart.
September 18th, 2008 at 6:23 pmOllie said:
Oddly enough, when it was announced the Beeb were getting F1 next year, one of my first reactions was that Hamilton is now (barring anything major) the 2009 Sports Personality of the Year. 2008 is bound to go to one of the Olympians, in my mind.
September 18th, 2008 at 7:50 pmpmtate said:
not sure if still after response on indentica re live commenting, just loaded it and it took almost a minute before any posts appeared in ie7
Paul
September 18th, 2008 at 7:50 pmpmtate said:
but that came back very quickly
September 18th, 2008 at 7:50 pmDom said:
ITV have won the best sport category with F1 for the last two years at the BAFTA Televsion awards, despite the broadcast being on the BBC.
They’ve won with Button’s first win in 2006 and Hamilton’s first win in 2007, and it seems unlikey that they were chosen purely on the basis that they may have been the best races of those two seasons. I’ll bet my house that the British Grand Prix will be the winner this year, if ITV get the award. Bear in mind they’ll be competing with the Olympics.
September 18th, 2008 at 7:52 pmLadySnowcat said:
Surely it has to be one of the Olympians given their time only comes up every four years…
September 18th, 2008 at 8:11 pmChristine said:
*folds arms and pouts*
September 18th, 2008 at 8:11 pmChristine said:
Thanks Alsorans, fixed.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:42 amAlianora La Canta said:
I’m hoping that Becky Adlington wins Sports Personality this year. It’s great to have a local hero win it (especially one in my favourite participation sport - swimming), and she comes from about 15 miles away from my house.
I can see the British Grand Prix winning the BAFTA even though the Monaco Grand Prix was a better race and arguably a better commentary performance.
September 19th, 2008 at 2:06 amme said:
totally off topic, but just in case anyone’s interested. amazon today announced an intention to offer up a content delivery service, designed sit alongside their existing s3 storage solution.
as you may be aware, we’re already using s3 to deliver audio and video podcasts via bittorent, but the servers are sitting in one location (europe).
the nature of a cdn means that data is copied to a location closer to the person downloading it, so things should arrive more quickly. or to put it amazon’s way:
“clients will be automatically routed to the nearest edge location for high performance delivery of content.”
no mention yet on whether they’ll also support live streaming, but if they do, our existing “buffering” problems would disappear in a heartbeat.
ahh, i remember when all they did was sell books
September 19th, 2008 at 4:42 amBassano Clapper said:
Not having followed a lot of the media at the time of the olympics I’d still be surprised if Chris Hoy didn’t win.
I can still hear the “captured the imagination of the British public” scripts now
Would probably consider myself a Hamilton fan but would not nominate him for BSPotY nor expect him to clinch it.
The Championship on the other hand…
September 19th, 2008 at 8:49 amStuart C said:
Glad you explained that…
September 19th, 2008 at 8:58 amAlex Andronov said:
It didn’t sound particularly comefortable to me!
September 19th, 2008 at 9:33 amFlibster said:
Coo, I remember that.
Many many many years ago….
September 19th, 2008 at 11:10 amStuart Codling said:
Just listened to last week’s Parade Lap. Some hardcore champaaaaaagning there!
Next time, perhaps, some Tremayning? Another favourite pursuit in the F1R office.
September 19th, 2008 at 11:39 amAlex Andronov said:
Tremayning?
September 19th, 2008 at 11:42 amme said:
damn, i meant to do a “compilation” post, i’ll get onto it right away.
for the second time in two days i google something, yet learn nothing?
September 19th, 2008 at 12:16 pmStuart C said:
Impressions of the legendary DT himself. Although to be strictly accurate, it’s more like doing an impression of Alan Henry doing an impression of DT…
September 19th, 2008 at 12:28 pmme said:
oh, david, right.
i’ve no idea what he does / says? can you phone in another example?
September 19th, 2008 at 3:16 pmStuart C said:
Marvellous. What you have to do is sound needlessly angry about quite a mundane subject, topping and tailing the whole shebang with a growl (DT doesn’t really do this, but it’s become an accepted part of the in-joke). Preferably do this while dressed entirely in black.
I’ll phone in with an example.
September 19th, 2008 at 3:27 pmAlex Andronov said:
I guess we’ll just have to take as read that you’ll be dressed in black when you phone in
September 19th, 2008 at 3:31 pmFlibster said:
I’m in luck for this one.Black and white is pretty much all I ever wear.
*although the converse all-stars add colour regularly - red and white ones today*
September 19th, 2008 at 3:34 pmStuart C said:
I cheated and wore a navy blue t-shirt.
If anyone is stuck for anything to say, may I suggest one of our office favourites: “[Grrrr!] Derek Warwick is abnormally brave [Grrrrrr!]”
I forgot to mention that the impression must be done with clenched teeth…
September 19th, 2008 at 3:52 pmme said:
oh this is awesome. righto, same deal as before then, here’s the voicemail in drop:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/tremayning
we’ll take live calls during next weekend’s parade lap. if you fancy ringing in before hand please do.
what should we do about mundane subjects? am thinking, put a bunch onto a hat and randomly assign them to live callers?
September 19th, 2008 at 4:30 pmScott Woodwiss said:
LMFAO! I am SO doing this next Sunday!
September 19th, 2008 at 4:53 pmAlex Andronov said:
I love the “God I’ve just frightened the cat” at the end! Awesome!
September 19th, 2008 at 6:20 pmStuart C said:
Remember: clench those teeth…
[GRRRR!] It’s plucky Jimmy Roberts! [GRRRRR!]
September 19th, 2008 at 6:39 pmSteven Roy said:
Just read the new F1 Racing from cover to cover in one sitting. It’s a long time since I did that with anything. One particular item caught my attention. Sidepodcast - OK ‘me’ has suggested a sidepodcast road trip. In F1 Racing Mr C did one that took in DC’s museum and the Jim Clark Room. I am surprised this has not been suggested for the Sidepodcast road trip. It has? What do you know another Sidepodcast idea appears at Haymarket.
September 19th, 2008 at 6:52 pmStuart C said:
Now you’re just being paranoid…
September 19th, 2008 at 6:54 pmStuart C said:
Just left a “Derek Warwick was abnormally brave” template on the voicemail…
September 19th, 2008 at 8:02 pmAlianora La Canta said:
My F1 Racing hasn’t arrived yet - all I got today was yet another advert for Online Librarian Conference 2008 (they advertise that almost as heavily as some shops advertise Christmas - now there’s a subject for Tremayning…) Perhaps it will arrive in the post tomorrow.
As for F1 Racing borrowing Sidepodcast ideas, I suspect the lead times for F1 Racing preclude actual stealing. Maybe it’s just that great minds think alike. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was simply because of certain recent(ish)ly published (auto)biographies that both of you got the idea…
September 19th, 2008 at 8:03 pmSteven Roy said:
Just because I am paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get me.
September 19th, 2008 at 10:05 pmme said:
you may be interested to know, that in february we made this episode:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2008/02/12/episode-51-whats-that-helmet-doing-in-the-middle-of-my-dinner/
take a perusal through the july edition of the mag and you’ll happen upon a bpl interview with mark webber conducted… guess where?
and, if that wasn’t enough evidence, once we talked about lewis hamilton in a show and guess who made the cover of that very same edition.
i say we have stuart bang to rights
September 20th, 2008 at 8:49 amStuart C said:
Hah! But that photo had been done a month and a half before, m’lud…