So now Ricky Hatton has some work to do. Joe Calzaghe cemented his place as Britain’s best boxer for some time after his points win over Mikkel Kessler and now Hatton must defeat Floyd Mayweather Jr to re-take Joe’s limelight. A tough ask but one that is possible.
A Hatton win would be a massive boost for British boxing and British sport in general. Combine these two with Lewis Hamilton’s rise to fame and the Scottish and Northen Irish football teams and its turned out to be not such a bad year for British sport.
But who will win Sport’s personality of the year?
Hamilton is the current bookies favourite and with his meteoric rise in the past year, who can argue. But will we praise, bearing in mind we’re a ‘nation of losers’, somebody who finished second in his respective sport. Personally, his form as a rookie in his first season, definitely places him high up in the list but there are more that also deserve the honour.
Joe Calzaghe, holder of the WBO belt for 10 years and counting, unified the super middleweight division on Saturday night putting him right in the mix. But he’s Welsh. The last Welshman to win the predominantly English award was David Broome in 1960.
However, if Hatton were to defeat Mayweather on December 8th, the day before the Sports Personality awards, then surely he will be in line to accept his award via satelitte link on Sunday evening!?
The shortlist of 10 contenders will be announced on the 30th November, probably to include the aforementioned, along with annual favourites, Paula Radcliffe, Tony McCoy and Italian Frankie Dettori.
It’s been a brilliant year for golfer Justin Rose winning the order of merit. Jonny Wilkinson, ‘saviour’ of English rugby is bound to make an appearance after England rugby’s World Cup Final appearance along with England’s favourite loser ‘Tiger’ Tim Henman (his last year as a professional, the BBC will let him sign-off in style!).
My surprise inclusion will be David Healy, his form this year has been fantastic and definitely deserves his place in the top ten.
However, he’s Northen Irish, so his hopes of winning the award, are slimmer than that of Joe Calzaghe!
2 comments:
I think Hamilton's nailed on to win but that's a good point about Hatton's fight being the night before the Sports Personality of the Year award. If he beat Mayweather, I'd like to see Hatton win the award personally. Really looking foward to that fight!
Yeh, Hamilton does seem to have it in the bag but last year so did Darren Clarke. If Hatton wins I think we could well see it going to the Hitman. Can't rule out Radcliff though after her New York marathon win. Papers were full of it yesterday.
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