Sir Mo Farah – the 2017 Sports Personality of the Year

BBC Sports has been organizing the Sports Personality of the Year Awards for 64 years and this time the event took place at the Echo Arena in Liverpool on December 17th. The hosts were Gary Lineker, Gabby Logan and Clare Balding, who announced that Sir Mo Farah was the new winner of this year’s edition.

Many people did bet on him with promotions similar to the Unibet Bono para Deportes to win the 10k metres race at the IAAF World Championships. And… This was his 3rd consecutive gold medal for this type of race. Mo Farah also got the silver at the 5k metres race.

Moreover, he is the first British athlete to win 10 titles in global outdoor long distance fixtures. Farah scored another premiere for his country by being the only Briton to win outdoor titles in four World Championships consecutively.

Other nominees

Other great athletes were nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award but fell short of winning it. The next in line was the motorcyclist Jonathan Rea who won the Superbike World Championship for the 3rd time thus becoming one of the 3 people in the world who achieved this ever. He did manage to be the first to win 3 titles consecutively and to break the record for most points scored in a single season. While Mo Farah gathered 83,524 of votes, Rea got a bit over 80,000.

He was followed by Jonnie Peacock, the athlete who won his second T44 100 metres gold medal at the World Para Athletics Championships. He got 73,429 of votes thus getting the third place. Other names worth mentioning are Anthony Joshua (boxing professional), Adam Peaty (swimmer), Lewis Hamilton (Formula 1) and Chris Froom (cyclist).

In the same event, several other awards were given. Roger Federer is the 2017 Overseas Sports Personality of the Year and England’s women’s cricket team is the Sports Personality Team of the Year. Here are the other categories presented this year:

  • Lifetime Achievement won by Jessica Ennis-Hill (retired track and field athlete)
  • Coach, a prize divided between Benke Blomkvist (athletics), Stephen Maguire (snooker) and Christian Malcolm (athletics)
  • a prize for the youth section: Phil Foden (footballer)
  • The Helen Rollason award that went to Bradley Lowery
  • The Unsung Hero: Denise Larrad (volunteer known for her fundraising work).