Andy Murray is threatening to make the BBC’s annual sports awards show a little boring. No one has ever won the award three times – not even a Formula One driver – but Murray looks set to win it for the third time in four years.
Murray won his first Sports Personality award in 2013, the year he ended his country’s 77-year wait for a men’s champion at Wimbledon. He lost out to Lewis Hamilton in 2014 (no threat of that this year) but recovered the title last year by guiding Great Britain to their first Davis Cup triumph in 79 years. If anything, Murray has enjoyed an even better season this year, with victories at Wimbledon, the Olympics and the ATP World Tour Finals making him the favourite to secure a hat-trick of awards.
A case can be made for a few of Team GB’s golden Olympians – principally Alistair Brownlee, Laura Trott, Mo Farah, Max Whitlock and Jason Kenny – but Murray has put together a near-flawless run over the past 12 months. He has won 90% of his matches, qualified for three grand slam finals, won one of them, retained his Olympic title and defeated Novak Djokovic at the ATP Tour Finals to finish the season as the world No1. It has been the best year of his professional life, but has he done enough to secure your vote?
