Luke Littler will have a shot at becoming the youngest winner of the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award for more than 60 years after being named on a six-strong shortlist headed by the Paris 2024 Olympics stars Keely Hodgkinson and Alex Yee.
The England footballer Jude Bellingham, the cricketer Joe Root and the Paralympian Sarah Storey complete the list. But, surprisingly, there is no place for Mark Cavendish, in a year when he broke Eddy Merckx’s record for Tour de France stage wins.
Victory would make Littler, who turned 17 in January, the second-youngest winner behind the Scottish swimmer Ian Black in 1958. His nomination is reward for a remarkable 12 months, in which he went from an almost complete unknown to the final of the PDC World Darts Championship, aged 16, and won more than £1m in prize money.
Littler, who last week was also nominated for the Young Personality of the Year award, tweeted his appreciation on Monday, saying: “This is MADDDD. First young sports personality and now sports personality of the year. Huge thank you to BBC Sport for nominating me – never thought I would be saying that.”
He is now second-favourite with the bookmakers, but faces strong competition from Hodgkinson, whose imperious 800m gold medal victory in Paris has made her the one to beat.
Hodgkinson, who also won the European title in Rome, could become the fourth woman in a row to claim the award, following the US Open tennis winner Emma Raducanu in 2021 and the England footballers Beth Mead and Mary Earps in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
Yee is likely to attract strong support too, given his extraordinary comeback to grab the Olympic men’s triathlon gold medal after catching Hayden Wilde in a thrilling finale.
Root earns his nomination after overtaking Sir Alastair Cook to become England’s highest Test run-scorer, while Bellingham was voted La Liga player of the season, helped his club win the Spanish title and Champions League, and was a key cog in England’s run to the Euro 2024 final.
Meanwhile the 47-year-old Storey, who claimed two Paralympic cycling gold medals in Paris, is bidding to become the oldest victor, beating 44-year-old Dai Rees, who successfully captained Britain and Ireland’s Ryder Cup team in 1957.
Asked about the exclusion of Cavendish, Storey replied: “I would love to have shared the list with Cav. But equally, if we can get a cyclist back on to the top, since Cav and Bradley Wiggins have won in the past, then it would be amazing to be able to represent not just the whole of the world of cycling, but also the whole of the ParalympicsGB team, as well as mums of a certain age and women who would play sport across so many different communities.”
The winner will be announced on Tuesday 17 December during a show presented by Clare Balding, Gabby Logan and Alex Scott.
