Sport
Sports Personality of the Year 2024: Early leading contenders
This year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year contest is still some-way down the line, but there are some early contenders to keep an eye-on.
We look over the early favourites in the betting to assess their chances of being crowned in December’s ceremony.
Mark Cavendish
The cycling world would’ve thought that the end of the 2023 season would have been the last time they saw of British cyclist Mark Cavendish. But he’s back, and he wants his record! In 2021 he equalled the legendary Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 Tour de France stage victories. Cavendish’s search for an outright record 35th win at the Tour appeared over when he broke his collarbone. The dream later completely diminished when officially retiring completely. If Mark Cavendish’s return this season does see him win this outright record, then it would be a special achievement from a British sportsman who has been at the top of the sprint cycling division for many years. It would also set him right in the frame for the prestigious SPOTY award.
At 38 years of age, Cavendish won’t have many more opportunities to return from injury and retirement for that matter, this potential perfect ending has him at a short price of 8/1 to lift the SPOTY trophy.
Ronnie O’Sullivan
Ronnie O’Sullivan has been in some of the greatest form of his career, despite being 48. Ronnie O’Sullivan became the oldest-ever UK champion with a 10-7 victory over Ding Junhui as he claimed a record-extending eighth title in York in December last year; This was the Englishman’s 40th ranking title and his 22nd Triple Crown success since turning professional in 1992 and he would soon add to it with victory in the Masters in January. He’s had some career, yet he’s never won the SPOTY award.
O’Sullivan will head to Sheffield with the chance to achieve a remarkable hat-trick and the ‘Triple-Crown’. One of the few things O’Sullivan is yet to achieve is winning snooker’s three Triple Crown events in the same season – and he’s now no bigger than 11/4 to do it. Should O’Sullivan win the World Championship there would surely be a strong chance of him also lifting the SPOTY trophy. After a stellar career there would be few more deserving SPOTY winners and it’s no surprise to see him as high up in the market at 8/1.
Harry Kane
England Captain, Harry Kane, will be leading the line into this year’s Euro competition. England are currently 3/1 favourites to lift the Euro trophy this year. If England were to win their first tournament since 1966, then you would assume that Harry Kane’s SPOTY title would follow closely behind, as he is our talesman and leader. Harry Kane has also been playing well for Bayern Munich and has already scored 17 goals in 13 games in Germany.
If either Bayern Munich or England can get their hands on a trophy this would be a major achievement for Kane and would make him a lot shorter price then his current 8/1 to claim this year’s SPOTY crown.
Luke Littler
Luke Littler has taken the darting world by storm in his professional debut season. In his first World Championships he went all the way to the final, before just coming up short in what would’ve been one of the biggest sporting upsets of all-time. He plays with no fear and is a very likeable and relatable character, which only adds to his chances of winning SPOTY this year.
Not long after his brilliant World Championship tournament, Littler went on to win his first World Series title at the Bahrain Darts Masters, and he has become a fan-favourite across all fans from many different sports. If Littler continues to perform at the level he is he will go on to win a lot of tournaments. Littler is the current favourite at 9/2 to add the SPOTY trophy to his long list of achievements in his breakthrough season.
