Can Keely Hodgkinson Be Opposed for the BBC’s Sports Award
Author:
Roy Brindley
The 2024 BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the prestigious annual award that recognizes the most outstanding British sporting achievements, will take place on Sunday, December 15. The winner, selected from a shortlist provided by the BBC, is determined by a public vote. It is announced during a live television show.
Despite the stats being against her, bookmakers make Keely Hodgkinson the clear favourite in the 2024 Sports Personality of the Year betting. ?Getty
The 2024 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award nominees will not be announced until closer to the broadcast date – possibly on the night itself. But the betting is open, and anticipation is high. Several outstanding candidates – including the 14 athletes who returned from the Paris Olympics with a gold medal – are in the running.
2023’s Sports Personality of the Year winner was Mary Earps. The England goalkeeper was the second successive women’s footballer to win the award following Beth Mead’s success in 2022. Tennis star Emma Raducanu took the prize in 2021 when ending a sequence of 14 consecutive male winners.
The UK’s top online bookmakers currently quote Keely Hodgkinson on 2/5 odds to take the sequence of female winners to four. The past six Sports Personality of the Year winners were favourites. The stats and the odds suggest 2024’s contest is as good as over long before viewers will cast their votes.
Hodgkinson Out to Rock the Record Books
Hodgkinson leapt to favouritism after success in the women’s 800 Metres in Paris 2024. Her success provided the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team with its first track success since Mo Farrah took gold at the 2016 Games. Team GB claimed ten athletics medals this summer, but hers was the only gold medal.
‘After so many global silvers it means so much’
Keely Hodgkinson told #BBCBreakfast ‘it means everything’ to win the 800m Olympic gold medal in Parishttps://t.co/PwQnQ3KGTK pic.twitter.com/bcfJvubsnG
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) August 6, 2024
From a form perspective, athletics is a rich source of Sports Personality of the Year winners – producing 18 previous victors. Formula 1 drivers sit a remote second on the table with eight winners. Those not tempted by Hodgkinson’s short odds will presumably point out that just one of the last 19 winners (and one of the previous 23 runner-ups) represented athletics.
Is Hodgkinson a good bet at 2/5? The Sports Personality of the Year betting market is notoriously volatile, and there have been significant price shifts during the year. The first came in January when 16-year-old Luke Littler marched to the final of the World Darts Championship.
Littler Could Be Targeted at Young Award
Littler could not overcome Luke Humphries in the World Darts Championship decider, but he was smashed into 3/1 on the day of the final. Backing up his credentials during the Premier League, he stood firm in the Sports Personality of the Year betting, hovering around 5/1 during the early months of 2024.
Winning that competition’s final on May 23, he was reinstated as a 3/1 market leader and could not be backed on anything greater than 5/1 until Hodgkinson produced her golden run at the start of August. Despite her victory and enormous Sports Personality of the Year price shift, the darts sensation is still short in the betting, top-priced 6/1.
Littler cannot win the Darts World Championship before Sports Personality of the Year 2024 (as it takes place in January 2025), and only one darts player has ever been shortlisted for the prize. This makes his odds appear very short, and one suspects the BBC will give him the Young Sports Personality of the Year award as a consolation for not putting him into the main event.
A 1-2-3 for Tour Ace?
Mark Cavendish, with bookmaker’s odds ranging between 12/1 and 20/1, is the Sports Personality’s third favourite. Breaking Eddy Merckx’s long-standing record for most career Tour de France stage wins with his 35th victory at the start of July; the 2011 Sports Personality winner was slashed into 3/1.
The Isle of Man athlete, who is approaching his 40th birthday and will retire this year, has drifted out in price ever since. Many betting experts believe he now represents a good bet, with bookmakers offering each-way positions of 1-2-3 and 1/5th odds terms.
Who says a flat stage of the Tour de France has to be boring? Congratulations to Sir Mark Cavendish on a record-breaking 35th Stage win. ??@MarkCavendish | @AstanaQazTeam | #TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/AK3YprktlN
— David Ho (@_david_ho_) July 3, 2024
Three Contenders to Consider Each Way
Another cyclist, Olympic gold medal winner Tom Pidcock, sits fourth on the betting list. Overcoming a puncture – which cost him 40 seconds – the 25-year-old Leeds native took Paris 2024’s mountain biking event in controversial circumstances. His achievements increase the likelihood of at least one cyclist making the Sports Personality final – but two is unlikely.
33/1 and greater odds are available about any other candidate landing Sports Personality of the Year. Formula 1 driver Lando Norris will shorten in price and possibly earn a shortlisting if he continues to win races and makes a run at the sport’s world championship. He is one to consider, as is Alfie Hewett.
The professional wheelchair tennis player, the current world No. 1, has won 30 Grand Slam titles (nine singles and 21 doubles). But it was not until this summer that Hewett completed a singles career Grand Slam by winning at Wimbledon. Success at the Paralympic Games will further help his cause, and he was amongst the final six in 2023’s Sports Personality of the Year.
