Who knew netball was so popular? Is sliding downhill really a sport? And how unloved must Chris Froome feel at being the best British Team Sky rider never to have won this public vote? These and other questions were asked, but not necessarily answered, as the Tour de France-winning cyclist Geraint Thomas accepted the famous silver four-turret lens camera trophy that is presented annually to the winner of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Having beaten Lewis Hamilton and Harry Kane into the minor placings at Birmingham’s Genting Arena, the visibly stunned Welshman accepted his award from Billie Jean King, who was also honoured for her own lifetime achievements. She had earlier delivered a rousing speech espousing the virtues of tolerance and inclusion at an event fabled for dividing public opinion to a degree that is quite frankly weird.
When he was not upsetting colleagues (Aggers, do stop it!) by defending his right to air understandable views on the folly of Brexit on Twitter last week, Gary Lineker, who co-hosted alongside Clare Balding and Gabby Logan, took one journalist to task for airing similarly forthright views on the folly of the often maligned annual orgy of self-congratulatory backslapping that is Spoty. “Why do you get angry?” he asked. “Seriously? It’s a television awards show. Granted, an award that is revered by those in contention and watched and largely enjoyed by a huge audience, but it is still just a TV show. Find your annual angst as bewildering as it is amusing.”
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