Smokescreen for the real reason perhaps

So the Olympics have finished, and this my prediction on who will make the shortlist

Mo Farah
Max Whitlock
Andy Murray
Adam Peaty
Nick Skelton
Jason Kenny
Laura Trott
Nicola Adams
Jade Jones
Charlotte Dujardin

If they add more to the list, i will go for Katherine Grainger and Jamie Vardy

But i feel they will be a few Paraolympic athletes on the shortlist like Jonny Peacock, Hannah Cockcroft and David Weir

Young Sports Personality must (imo) go to Amy Tinkler. If so that would make it three gymnasts in a row I think for young SPOTY

Edit. Yes It would be 3 after Claudia Fragapane and Ellie Downie.

No Ali Brownlee???

She is too old. She will be 17 at the time.

Ali Brownlee has to be in, and probably also Chris Froome, but that would make three cyclists (excluding Brownlee), which is probably too much. They'd never have two horse-riders. Skelton has the better story, but he's still one of the weaker entries on that list.

It would be an insult to all of the gold medal winning rowers to include Grainger, not to mention all of the other silver medallists.

There will definitely be Paralympians on the list. The strongest claim to date is Gordon Reid, but we'll need to wait and see.

The list will be decided by a panel, so hopefully they'll go for merit over and above celebrity, but come the voting, those athletes who manage to maintain their profile after the current hype dies down, will have an edge.

Have you forgotten about Lewis Hamilton or have you deliberately left him off the list ?

If ever there was a year for a bigger list its this one. You could probably list 16 or so candidates.

No she's not.

Its their age on January 1 of the year so it doesn't matter if she turns 17 during the calendar year. Ellie Downie turned 17 in July but would still qualify and Claudia Fragapane turned 17 prior to winning her award in 2014.

I stand corrected. I misread the rules.

I reckon they will do a list of between 12 and 15 this year

Bookies still have Andy Murray as fav

Murray - 6/5
Mo - 5/2
Trott - 6/1
Kenny - 14/1
Bale - 16/1
Whitlock - 20/1
Skelton - 33/1
Hamilton - 40/1
Joshua - 40/1

50/1 Bar

two horse race according to Mr Ladbroke

Who is Bar??

Brilliant!

Bale the one who seems wrongly priced. (too short)

This guy did say that The Rock was a greater sportsman than Muhammed Ali so his sporting knowledge is nil anyway, this confirms it.

I remember a bloke in our local asking his wife to look on the sheet on the wall to find out who he was playing in the next round of the darts.....her reply "You're play A Bye. I don't know him he must drink the vault"

My sporting knowledge is quite good thank you very much.

Just because we disagree over over one sports person, does not mean that I have no knowledge of sport.

You are very much mistaken.

A girl I used to work with confessed to being confused for years by the phrase "Ask Bill Payer's Permission" for entering phone in competitions etc, wondering who Bill Payer was, and why he needed to give permission

Anyhow, getting back to the topic at hand if I may, it is just so hard to select an actual winner, as there are just so many worthy candidates, how do you go about separating them, and saying A is better than B, and so deserves it more?

I do not envy those people this year who are going to have to try and put together, or narrow things down to get a final shortlist for the public to vote on.

Nick Skelton will definitely be part of the shortlist, after all he is the oldest gold medal winning GB athlete since 1908! I expect them to do what they did in 2012 and have 12 on the shortlist instead of 10. I doubt Bale will make the final cut.

If Kell Brook does the unthinkable and defeats GGG he's got to be on there as well. But apart from that unlikely event, I can only see Lewis out of all the other non-olympians/paraolympians having even a sniff of making the cut.

And just leading on from the fantastic "Who is Bar" query, I remember sitting next to my cousin while watching the "100 greatest Britons" program. The unknown soldier was listed and my cousin asked, "Who was he?".......

If Kell Brook is being talked of, why not Bisping?

He is a champion in a very tough and deep division in his own sport, and he has beaten a legend in Anderson Silva!

If you have a look at sports personality winners on Wikipedia since 1950s there has always been a winner in athletics in a space of every 2-4 years the longest gap was 7 years and as of now since 2004 witch was the last year a winner was from athletics ,it's now the longest gap in the history of sports personality that someone from athletics has not WON - if the people of Great Britain do not vote MO FARAH our greatest living athlete in athletics with 4 golds on the night , it will be a injustice and a sign of how bad as a nation we have become it will be also a gap of 12 years since ,so if MO FARAH is not voted on the night winner then WHEN would a worthy winner in athletics happen ? There are so many worthy winners but most are young and will feature in future olympics , No one has 3 golds in athletics in British history - MO has 4 I'm sure on the night common sense will prevail

I would be delighted if Mo Farah were to win it.
Young sports personality of the year I would like to see go to Amy Tinkler
Team, changed my mind think GB women's hockey team
Coach, Danny Kerry (GB women's hockey team)
Overseas, Michael Phelps
Lifetime Achievement, Would like it to go to Steve Davis. But there is potential competition from the following
Bradley Wiggins
Kate Richardson Walsh
Nick Skelton

No idea how lifetime achievement is adjudicated but if Beckham has won it in a previous year then surely Davis would deserve it

He's only joking, maybe you should lighten up a bit.

I would have thought Mo was a value bet more so than Murray considering Murray has won it twice in three years...Steve Davis life time achievement is a great shout. If the life time achievement stretches to none British sportsmen/women I would love to see a man who finished his professional career in this years Masters tournament honoured. The greatest links golfer ever..........Tom Watson.....................