Sports Personality of the Year shortlist announced
- Published
A shortlist of six contenders has been announced for the 2024 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
Footballer Jude Bellingham, runner Keely Hodgkinson, darts player Luke Littler, cricketer Joe Root, Para-cyclist Sarah Storey and triathlete Alex Yee are the nominees.
Voting will take place during the show on BBC One and the BBC iPlayer on Tuesday, 17 December.
The programme - presented by Gabby Logan, Alex Scott and Clare Balding, and broadcast live from MediaCityUK in Salford - will celebrate 12 months of incredible sporting action.
Alex Kay-Jelski, director of BBC Sport, said: "It's a fantastic shortlist. All six have kept us on the edge of our seats this year, showing us how sensational they are.
"I'm looking forward to reliving each of their successes on the night and finding out who audiences want to be crowned BBC Sport Personality of the Year 2024."
The public can vote by phone or online on the night for the main award, with full details announced during the show.
Other awards to be announced include Young Sports Personality of the Year, Team and Coach of the Year, Unsung Hero and the Helen Rollason Award.
The Lifetime Achievement and World Sport Star awards will also be presented.
- Published5 days ago
- Published4 days ago
- Published5 December
Sports Personality of the Year 2024 contenders
Jude Bellingham
Age: 21 Sport: Football
In his debut season at the Bernabeu, Bellingham helped Real Madrid win La Liga and the Champions League, contributing a remarkable 23 goals in all competitions.
The midfielder also scored twice on England's route to the Euro 2024 final, including a spectacular overhead kick against Slovakia.
Those exploits meant he finished third in the Ballon d'Or voting - the highest position by an Englishman since Frank Lampard came second in 2005.
He was named La Liga player of the season and Champions League young player of the season as well as collecting the Laureus world breakthrough of the year award.
Keely Hodgkinson
Age: 22 Sport: Athletics
Hodgkinson ended her wait for a major global title in stunning fashion by claiming 800m gold at the Paris Olympics.
After a series of near-misses, including silvers at the Tokyo Games and at the past two World Championships, she was not to be denied again and ran out a dominant winner at the Stade de France.
It was Team GB's first Olympic track title since Mo Farah's 5,000m and 10,000m double in Rio in 2016, and made Hodgkinson only the 10th British woman to win an athletics gold at an Olympics.
Earlier in the year she retained her 800m title at the European Championships.
Luke Littler
Age: 17 Sport: Darts
Littler catapulted himself to stardom on a fairytale run to the PDC World Championship final.
Just months after finishing his GCSEs, and ranked a lowly 164th in the world, the then 16-year-old broke a host of records en route to reaching the final.
He has gone on to claim 10 trophies, including becoming the youngest winner of a major PDC tournament with victory in the Premier League Darts, and also triumphed at the prestigious Grand Slam of Darts.
His earnings for the year have surpassed £1m and he is also on track to break the record for the most 180s in a season.
Joe Root
Age: 33 Sport: Cricket
Root made history in October by becoming England's record Test run scorer, surpassing Sir Alastair Cook's mark of 12,472 en route to a brilliant career-best score of 262 against Pakistan.
In that same Test he and Harry Brook set an England record partnership of 454, and in August's second Test against Sri Lanka, Root also broke Cook's record for the most Test centuries by an Englishman.
He is now fifth on the all-time list of Test run scorers and became the first Englishman to surpass 20,000 international runs across formats.
Root - at the time of writing - had scored the most Test runs of any player in 2024.
Sarah Storey
Age: 47 Sport: Para-cycling
Britain's most successful Paralympian added two more gold medals to her incredible collection as she won the C4-C5 road race and C5 road time trial at the Paris Games.
They extended her British record tally of Paralympic career medals to 30, 19 of which are golds, and came 32 years after her first in Para-swimming in 1992.
Storey's success continued at the Road and Para-cycling World Championships as she again won the double of the C4-C5 road race and C5 road time trial titles for a remarkable 10th time to increase her haul of world golds to 39.
Alex Yee
Age: 26 Sport: Triathlon
Yee enjoyed a spectacular 2024 in which he was crowned both Olympic and world champion.
In Paris he produced a stunning and memorable finish to overtake New Zealand's Hayden Wilde in the closing stages of the run to win his first individual Olympic gold, and he was also part of the Great Britain team that won bronze in the mixed relay.
Yee's dominance extended to the World Triathlon Series with victories in Cagliari and Weihai helping him claim the first world title of his career after a succession of near-misses in recent years.
Sports Personality of the Year: How many past winners can you name?
Who was on the judging panel?
The judging panel for this year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year came from the world of sport, broadcasting and journalism.
It included five-time Olympic cycling champion Dame Laura Kenny, ex-runner Iwan Thomas, Paralympian Ade Adepitan, former Manchester City defender Nedum Onuoha and Ireland rugby veteran Rory Best.
Broadcaster Eilidh Barbour was joined by sports journalists Laura Williamson (The Athletic) and Eleanor Crooks (PA Media), as well as Stephanie Hilborne - CEO of Women in Sport.
Representing the BBC were director of sport Alex Kay-Jelski, head of sport content Philip Bernie and executive producer Gabby Cook.