Sir Mark Cavendish, the most successful sprinter in cycling history, will be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement award at BBC Sports Personality of the Year this evening.

The 39-year-old from the Isle of Man retired from the sport earlier this year having won 165 races during his career.

Cavendish holds the record for the most Tour de France stage wins after securing his 35th victory in Saint Vulbas in July.

He rounded off a stellar 19-year career with victory at the Tour de France Criterium in Singapore in November.

Cavendish will be presented with his award during the ceremony this evening.

"It's such an amazing feeling, what an honour," said Cavendish.

"It makes me realise my age. I've been riding for 20 years and I've done everything I can so to be awarded this is something very, very special."

Read more here.

Before tonight's show, which you can watch live on BBC One from 7pm, you may have noticed the recipients of some awards have already been announced.

Let's take a look at who will be honoured, and why...

Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson in the house...

Image source, PA Media

Image source, PA Media

Harry Poole
BBC Sport

Poor Sarah Storey, but it’s great to hear her ankle is on the mend.

What a year she has had though. Her Paralympic medal tally now stands at 30 - including 19 golds, with two more at Paris 2024 just the 32 years after she won her first.

But the most special part of it all was her children being able to watch on the roadside in the French capital.

“Louise and Charlie getting to see me together on the roadside, getting to see me win on the roadside. It was just so, so special. And our friends and family were out there as well.

“It really was just amazing, especially because after Tokyo, we'd had no one there.”

Of course, it's not just about the main award.

Before this year's Sports Personality of the Year is crowned, there are several other achievements for us to celebrate.

Here is a reminder of the full list of awards to be handed out this evening:

• Sports Personality of the Year
• Young Sports Personality of the Year
• World Sport Star of the Year
• Unsung Hero Award
• Coach of the Year
• Team of the Year
• Helen Rollason Award
• Lifetime Achievement Award

Harry Poole
BBC Sport

Image source, PA Media

Olympic and world triathlon champion Alex Yee is here, and describes that fact alone as “a bit mad”.

It’s all been a bit of a blur for the 26-year-old, a contender for tonight’s main award, who went straight into targeting his first world title following Olympic glory.

And he’s already looking ahead to 2025, having announced this week he will run the London Marathon in April.

“I don't feel satisfied with what I've done, I still want to keep pushing,” says Yee.

“I'm still excited and that’s where this marathon project came in. I think four years is a long time to push to LA and I think, the excitement of the marathon, particularly London, was definitely a challenge I was interested in.”

Anna Thompson
BBC Sport at Sports Personality of the Year

Contender Dame Sarah Storey broke her ankle a couple of weeks ago training for Dancing on Ice.

It was an innocuous accident but has resulted in her left foot being in plaster for another six weeks.

“I knew straight away I’d broken it,” she told BBC Sport.

“I lost my balance at the end of a spin and fell over.”

She’s jazzed up her protective boot for SPOTY tonight and it’s certainly been a talking point on the red carpet.

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Our contenders are starting to arrive on the red carpet. Teenage darts sensation Luke Littler is in the house!

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It's time to meet your contenders.

As announced last week, there are six athletes hoping to get their hands on the illustrious BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2024 trophy.

They are:

• Jude Bellingham (football)
• Keely Hodgkinson (athletics)
• Luke Littler (darts)
• Joe Root (cricket)
• Sarah Storey (para-cycling)
• Alex Yee (triathlon)

BBC Sport's Personality of the Year was first held in 1954.

But who will be the next to join the illustrious list of previous winners as the 70th winner of the main award, won most recently by:

• 2023 - Mary Earps
• 2022 - Beth Mead
• 2021 - Emma Raducanu
• 2020 - Sir Lewis Hamilton
• 2019 - Ben Stokes
• 2018 - Geraint Thomas
• 2017 - Sir Mo Farah
• 2016 - Sir Andy Murray

Anna Thompson
BBC Sport

The red carpet opened at 4.30pm and there has been a steady stream of sports stars gracing it.

Jess Ennis-Hill was among the early arrivals and was a popular interviewee for the media who have assembled.

Image source, BBC Sport

Let's test your knowledge of sport over the past 12 months, shall we?

I'm going to leave you with six questions - and I'll share the answers a little later on. No looking up the answers!

• What was the name the winner of the 2024 Grand National at Aintree?
• In what sports did GB win their first gold medals of both the Olympics and Paralympics?
• Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal retired from tennis this year, but how many Grand Slams did he win in his career?
• James Anderson's illustrious and record-breaking cricket career came to an end in July, but from which nation did he take the most wickets?
• American gymnast Simone Biles shone at the Paris Olympics, but how many medals did she win at the 2024 Games?

• Spain beat England 2-1 in the final of the European Championships, who scored England's only goal?

Harry Poole
BBC Sport

At the end of the red carpet, once the stars have had a quick chat with us pesky journalists, their fun isn’t over there.

There’s also a GlamBOT camera - which proved very popular last year - while Hacker T Dog also awaits alongside the Gladiator ‘Legend’ hoping to catch up with a few of the athletes before they make their way in and can at last grab a seat.

Arnold: A tricky decision, because Keely winning was my absolute favourite moment of the Olympics. It took something special to beat Bryony Page, Toby Roberts and Tom Pidcock, but I'm going to vote for Root tonight for "services rendered".

Tessa: The two best British moments for me this year are Alex Yee winning Triathlon gold and Keely Hodgkinson 800m gold at the Paris Olympics.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, PA Media

Last year, you crowned England and Paris St–Germain goalkeeper Mary Earps as the 2023 BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Earps, 30, was the Lionesses' standout player as they reached a first World Cup final in the summer and was rewarded with the Golden Glove for the best goalkeeper at the tournament.

She became the second women's footballer in succession to win the BBC award after Beth Mead won it in 2022.

In the public vote, England cricketer Stuart Broad was second, with world heptathlon champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson third.

Who will you crown as winner this time?

Here's a look back on some of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year winning moments over the years, with words from some of our 70 previous winners...

Harry Poole
BBC Sport

The red carpet has been rolled out here at Media City, and not long before the athletes began arriving it was still covered by a protective sheet to make sure it was in perfect condition before the big opening.

I can assure you it’s now filled with sporting royalty as we build up to tonight’s show!

Image source, Getty Images

Let's refresh our memories with some of the headlines from 2024.

England reached a second consecutive European Championship final but agonisingly lost out to Spain 2–1 in Berlin while Manchester City won an unprecedented fourth Premier League title in a row and Chelsea's women secured a record–extending fifth Women's Super League title.

In cricket, India's men won the T20 World Cup while New Zealand took the women's title.

Image source, Getty Images

Records were broken, tears of joy and disappointment were shed and medals were won at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games as Great Britain won sixty five Olympic medals in Paris and a whopping 124 Paralympic medals.

England's women took the Six Nations crown for a third successive year as Ireland lifted the men's trophy.

The United States won the Solheim Cup for the first time since 2017, Max Verstappen won a fourth consecutive Formula 1 drivers title and two greats of tennis – Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray – retired.

And that's barely even the half of it.

Image source, Getty Images

Before we continue, it's time to make sure you're in a position to vote for your winner later this evening.

To do that, you must sign in to a BBC account.

Voting will be available by phone and via the BBC Sport website when it opens during the main show. The phone number to call for each contender will be revealed during the programme.

Once the vote is open, you can either dial to vote for your favourite, or cast your vote online. You can only vote once and must be in the UK to vote online.

Viewers who wish to vote online will need to sign in to a BBC account at https://www.bbc.com/signin.

If you do not yet have a BBC account, you can register for one for free at https://www.bbc.com/register.