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 make up 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.
For Littler the nomination caps 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 then went on to win more than £1m in prize money.
Victory would make Littler, who turned 17 in January, the second youngest winner behind the Scottish swimmer Ian Black in 1958. However, he faces strong competition from Hodgkinson, whose imperious 800m gold medal victory in Paris has made her a strong favourite with the bookmakers.
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.
Yee is likely to receive strong support too, given his extraordinary comeback to grab the Olympic men’s triathlon gold medal after catching Hayden Wilde in a thrilling finale. For good measure, the 26-year-old Yee then helped Team GB to win bronze in the mixed relay before taking the world title in October.
Root earns his nomination after overtaking Sir Alastair Cook to become England’s highest Test run-scorer of all time. Root surpassed Cook’s tally of 12,472 runs in the first Test against Pakistan in October.
Bellingham’s stellar year, in which he helped Real Madrid to secure the La Liga title and the Champions League before being one of the key cogs in England’s Euro 2024 run to the final, also gets him on the shortlist.
The 47-year-old Storey, who claimed two Paralympic cycling gold medals in Paris, is the final name in contention. The most decorated British women in Paralympic history is bidding to become the oldest victor, beating Dai Rees who was 44 when he won the award after successfully captaining Britain and Ireland’s Ryder Cup team in 1957.
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The winner will be announced on Tuesday 17 December in a show presented by Clare Balding, Gabby Logan and Alex Scott.