blonde poker forum

Ten contenders have been named on the shortlist for the 2007 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.

Formula One ace Lewis Hamilton, boxers Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe, plus athletes Paula Radcliffe and Christine Ohuruogu are among the contenders.

Golfer Justin Rose, motorcyclist James Toseland, tennis player Andy Murray and England rugby stars Jonny Wilkinson and Jason Robinson complete the candidates.

A public phone vote decides the winner during the show on Sunday 9 December.

Millions of viewers are set to tune in for the star-studded programme hosted by Gary Lineker, Sue Barker and Adrian Chiles.

An audience of nearly 8,000 people at the NEC in Birmingham will see a range of awards being presented at the sell-out show.

   
Presenters Adrian Chiles, Sue Barker and Gary Lineker
When: 1900 GMT, 9 Dec
Where: NEC, Birmingham
Channel: BBC One
Full coverage also on Radio 5 Live and BBC Sport website

Hamilton is rated favourite by the bookmakers to win the trophy, which was lifted by world equestrian champion Zara Phillips in 2006.

Second favourite with the bookies is Hatton, who fights Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas less than 24 hours before the vote takes place.

The shortlist was drawn up by canvassing the top 10 selections of more than 30 sporting experts, including a range of newspaper editors.

Three current world champions and three runners-up are on the shortlist, with a total of seven sports represented:

I'd like to see Joe Calzaghe win this, I dont think he will, but it would be deserved.

Hamilton has this sewn up, and fully deserved too!

Hatton fights on the 8th, if he wins the fight he'll p**s this.

No.

If he went to a smaller team with a shit car and then he nearly won the F1 Championship then I agree he deserves it.

But F1 is just bollocks. It doesn't matter if you can drive backwards as fast as the others if your car isn't competitive, then you'll have no chance ldo.

Calzaghe has been at the top of his game for over 12 years. He hasn't lost a fight and is only one of 5 boxers to defend his title over 20 times.

I will be very disappointed if Hamilton won ahead of Calzaghe. It would be an absolute joke if he does.

 ;iagree;

RICKY 2 WIN!!!

Calzaghe is a living LEGEND.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calzaghe

If Hatton beat Mayweather, he deserves this.

Calzaghe is definitely also a worthy winner. perhaps if he fights Bernard Hopkins then retires, he'll pick it uop next year.

Hamilton has done exeptionally well in his first year, but was runner up and has many years in front of him.

regardless of Hatton's result, both boxers are more deserving winners in my eyes. the worry is they'll split the boxing vote and both miss out to Hamilton

Calzaghe should win by a country mile.....but won't

The Petrolhead lobby is enormous, and fanatic. Boxers may have strong arguments to win it but sidelined on Sky and PPV they won't get the votes from the armchair viewer (rather than the hardened sports fan from whom they would)

Hamilton will walk it.

Calzaghe is arguably the best British fighter of all time.  He's the longest-reigning World Champion at any weight.  Hatton is hot on his heels, and if he beats Mayweather there'll be a hell of a lot of votes for him on the Sunday.

Hatton is far more personable than Calzaghe, who struggles with the limelight.  This will go in Hatton's favour in the voting.  Calzaghe's recent fights have been on ITV - so that has given him more exposure to the casual boxing fan who doesn't watch it on Sky.  That will go in Calzaghe's favour.

As for Hamilton, yes he had a good season, but he SHOULD have won it.  He had the opportunity (the fastest car for a lot of the season), and lost the chance through his own error.  Does he deserve to win the SPOTY off the back of that...I'd say no.

Jason Robinson deserves some sort of lifetime achievement award, but I wouldn't complain if he won it (although he won't).

Toseland won't win it.  Foggy didn't win it when he won the world title however many years on the trot, so Toseland has no chance.

Paula Radcliffe has only just come back from her break from running, and so hasn't really done anything to justify her winning it (although she's won more than some of the others on the list).  When she wins in Beijing, she might win the SPOTY again.

Ohuruogu is the world champion in her event (400m), but has a higher profile for the fact that she missed a series of drugs tests and so was banned from competing.  She won't win.

Justin Rose, Andy Murray and Jonny Wilkinson are just making up the numbers, surely?



If either boxer wins it, I'll be happy.

Good post.  Pretty much spot on.  Calzaghe is a mile clear at the minute in my opinion, but if Hatton beats Mayweatherthen he has huge claims as well.  For me it should only go to a winner.  Had Hamilton won then I'd have had no complaints, however he didn't despite EVERYTHING being in his favour, so that rules him out for me for this year anyway.  I've no doubt however that he will win by a wide margin.

They've stiffed Calzaghe for the last decade so I wouldn't be surprised if they ignored him for this year (I mean Steve Redgrave had to wait 20 years and win five gold medals to get his SPotY award!).

As suggested above when the fight against Bernard Hopkins is made and if Joe beats him, then Joe should[/b] get it but that's no guarantee as 2008 is an Olympic year and there may be an emerging star to be praised and lauded.
 
Hamilton despite choking is probably getting recognised for various things and the most tolerable reason is that his record of being the youngest rookie to have such a season is likely going to stand for quite a while. The fact that he tanked his last two races doesn't seem to matter.

The top three is extremely likely to be a combination of Calzaghe, Hamilton and Hatton (well duh) and I'd be surprised if any of the other seven can topple 'em (there's no Beth Tweddle doing a demonstration of their sport this time 'round to grab a few fickle/impressionable phone votes on the night).

I wonder if she'll manage to remember to turn up for it.

Please one time let it be Calzaghe or Hatton, preferably Calzaghe for me. The bloke is the most underrated sporting icon of our generation, he is comfortably the best boxer at his weight its not even close. The guy has proved it all without the accolades. Ship it to Joe or Ricky.

Lewis hamilton winning it would be a disgrace, so SPOTY should be awarded to someone who essentially has had it handed a F1 championship  on a plate and has failed. I am biased F1 ain't even in a competitive sport to me, whereas boxing is the ultimate test of sport for mine.

Sadly Longy, I fear motor racing has a hugely more active support base than boxing, amongst the armchair voters

Hamilton will win it by miles I think

Big bouts on terrestrial telly can pull in millions of viewers.  But boxing has struggled to pull in the viewers regularly over the last decade (because the best fights have been regularly on Sky).  How many viewers does the F1 get?  Must admit, I'd rather watch paint dry most of the time.


Unless he drives off the track and into the gravel...

A timely appearence by Hamilton on Top Gear tonight.

Cynical ole me

Cynical ole you.

(You're not wrong though.  Maybe it's down to the unique way the BBC is funded...)

Top Gear viewers are going to vote for him anyway though - Calzaghe's people should have got him in that reasonably priced car.

Grand Prix's this year were pulling in 7 million viewers

I'm not a great fan of boxing, have never seen Hatton fight, seen Calzaghe fight once. Was bored!

If Hatton was on terrestial I may have seen him fight occasionally


therein lies the difference for these phone in popularity contests

A quick straw poll in the pub last night...Hamilton shouldn't win but will clearly..

I still maintain SKALIE should win it for his WSOP achievement this year.

A top performance and "more personality" than the other 10 put together

WOOT???????????????????????????????????

OMG. i know you like to post on every thread but come on behave.

Calzaghe has the best record, but Lennox was the best Brtish boxer.

FYP ;)

I know you like to stir on every thread, but go on then - who would you consider as the best 3 British boxers of all time?

Notice I did say 'arguably' - as in there's a case for him to be considered as such.  I'd like to hear your well considered and thoughtful opinion and valued expertise on this subject.

English born to Jamacan parents.
you can represent anyone in the olympics. hasn't got a Canadian bone in his body ;) ;)

not had one since he stopped dating Brian Adams.

and no I would not say that to his Canadian face.

Well done Joe!!

:)up

Fair play - the right winner all in. Seems so obvious when you think about it and how many people turn up for his fights!! Was a little worried it was going to be a shocker if Lewis was second and Ricky took the boxing fans vote - but came out right in the end.

1st - Joe Calzaghe
2nd - Lewis Hamilton
3rd - Ricky Hatton

Team award - England Rugby Union

Lifetime - Sir Bobby Robson

Overseas - Roger Federer

Missed this. Hear, hear.

Great result for Joe. The undisputed Super Middleweight Champion and The Greatest Super Middleweight of All Time.

Bobby Robson Lifetime award ...  ;tightend; ;tightend; ;tightend; ;tightend; ;tightend; ;tightend; ;tightend; ;tightend; ;tightend; ;tightend; ;tightend;

Bobby Robson is a legend in every sense of the word. I just can't comprend his contribution to football. I haven't even been alive for half of his career.

I had the prilivage to serve him in a hotel when I was at uni and he was exactly how i hoped, and you'd expect, him to be.


Glad to see Hatton had been for a few to drown his sorrows!!

I thought he sounded pissed

I missed it this year, to be honest im shocked. While being very happy that Joe won it, totally deserved.

good result, makes up for that bullshit last year with the rigged vote!

Calzaghe, a worthy winner

they finally got the top 3 right I think..

 ;iagree;

That's not many votes at all, considering the BBC had been plugging it all week. I also think it would have meant that Hatton would have won if he'd beaten Mayweather, as most of these votes would have come in on the night.

Not many at all, good job there wasn't an option to vote for Joe Pasquale or Same Difference or they would have won SPOTY.

unbelievable lack of votes - thats 385,000 approx between the top 3 and therefore no more than 500,000 altogether.

When you think that the final of X Factor next week will probably have 4-5 million votes that is a really small number.

I not only think that Hatton would have won the SPOTY if he'd beaten Mayweather, but also that if the fight wasn't on until next week, Hatton would have got some of the votes that Calzaghe received and Hamilton would have won SPOTY.

True..the good thing is that the fewer people call the better the vote ussually turns out to be. Democracy is highly over-rated.

SPOTY is not as popular as X factor..but then again more people read the Sun than any other newspaper and more people have read "The DaVinci Code" than "War and Peace"....

My point?..Most people are idiots.

maybe it also shows how many people watch terrestrial tv nowadays - since i got full sky package years ago its very rare that i'll watch BBC or ITV now. Still forced to pay the tv license for a load of repeats and second rate sporting events that i never watch :(

BBC is quality, I watch it quite a lot even though I have Sky.  ITV is different though, there's not much I watch there.

Joe deserved it, perhaps if Rickys fight was a week earlier and he'd have won, he'd have got it.  Can't see why Lewis deserves it, no offense, but he didn't win the WC, had he done that then perhaps that would have been different too, but you can't argue with the winner, he's total class and deserves everything he gets.

Not sure that England Rugby team deserved the team award.  Sure they did 'ok' considering how poor they were not long before hand, but they should have been at that standard and not have been in the position where they looked good by playing where they should have been - if you know what I mean.   I thought all those gold medals the cycling team earned was something special.

Good stuff though, I quite like the event, it's a nice summary of the year which unfortunately this year seems to be that we nearly won lots but didn't quite win anything but going forward the future could be quite exciting :)

Same as most years then?

;D

Ricky only had a small chance in beating Mayweather and even if he did, I still think that Calzaghe would have won SPOTY.

Typical British mentality.

I am shocked that the British public were capable of choosing the right man.  I was certain that Hamilton would win.


Britains finest boxer (don't think anyone can argue about that now ;) ) is a very worthy winner/.