My choice for BBC Sports Personality of the Year is Channel Swimmer and actor-comedian David Walliams after his epic cross-Channel swim.But don't bother trying to vote for him tonight as the BBC airs it's epic show: The star of Little Britain didn't even make the Top Ten, despite a campaign by The Sun and The Evening Standard.
The Sunday Times headlines today talk of vote-rigging which kept David Walliams off the short-list. The favourites for the award are Zara Phillips, daughter of the Princess Royal and Darren Clarke, the golfer who helped win the Ryder Cup six weeks after his wife died of cancer.
Worthy sports personalities, I'm sure.
But it's all a bit of a farce, when one of the ten people you can vote for is some guy who chucks darts at a board for a living.
Darts is a pub pastime, not an Olympic sport. Being able to hit the board is very skilfull, of course but hardly comparable to the sporting achievement, heroism and personality - of David Walliams who swam the channel to raise £1 million for charity for a bet!
Apparently, the voting furore has embarrassed the BBC into making a special award to David Walliams - who is now planning a charity swim the Bering Straits which link Russia to the USA.
The final farce is that the BBC has revealed that the Young Sports Personality of the Year has been won by Theo Walcott, the young lad who joined the England World Cup team but didn't get to kick a ball...On that form, it will be amazing if the Scots who became World Champions at Elephant Polo last week don't win.
(but they're not shortlisted either!).
UPDATED: Zara Phillips, daughter of the Princess Royal won this year's Sports Personality Award of the Year, as my pic lifted from the BBC site shows.
A real laydee.
2 comments:
As my wife Morag so aptly observed "those horse people resemble their horses".
No sports fans give a monkey's hoot about Zara Phillips, so how did she win this award?
is Morag suggesting that the horse should have won the personality award...?
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