Will you be voting Cav?

Rob Spedding | Blog, Cycling Plus, News | 30/11/2010 10:23am

It’s that time of year again. The BBC has revealed it’s shortlist for the Sports Personality of the Year awards and Team High Road’s Mark Cavendish has made the top 10 for the second year running…

Last year, Cav looked to be in with an excellent shout after a sensational Tour de France in which he took six stages, became the first Briton to wear the leader’s pink jersey at the Giro d’Italia and won the Milan-San Remo classic. Despite this he lost out to ageing – he’s one year younger than me… – Manchester United winger Ryan Giggs. Giggsy is, undoubtedly, a brilliant footballer but 2009 wasn’t by any means his best year ever. It felt more like a lifetime achievement gong.

This year Mark has, after a slow start, had another pretty fine season – five stages at Le Tour and becoming only the second British rider to win the points jersey at the Vuelta a Espana – so he should again be in with a chance of winning. My, pretty safe, bet is that he won’t.

Vote for me!

Cycling doesn’t really register in the minds of the wider public. Only two cyclists have ever won the award – Tom Simpson in 1965 and Sir Chris Hoy in 2008. Formula One, athletics, boxing, Winter Olympic sports and football obviously mean more to Brits than bikes. Is Amy William’s skeleton gold more deserving of an award than Emma Pooley’s World Time Trial gold?

Of course, it could be argued that it’s a pointless award – although most recipients do seem to be genuinely moved when they win – and then there’s the whole ‘Sport’ and ‘Personality’ thing. (Cav is one of the few who qualifies for the latter.) As a cycling fan I would like to see Mark win, but he’d probably have to win the Tour de France for that to happen. I’ll vote for him, of course, but then there’s also part of me that’d love to see darts legend Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor win it too!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at 10:23 am and is filed under Blog, Cycling Plus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Tags: BBC Sports Personality of the Year, bike, C+, Cavendish, Cycling Plus, ProCycling, Racing, road