BBC Sports Personality of the Year

As traditional as Christmas lunch and the Queen's seasonal broadcast, each year in December we are bombarded with adverts to remind us that the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the shindig to end all shindigs, is upon us. This is an awards show with a difference. A triumph of addictive naffness, with a roll call of previous winners which reads like a who's who of sport. The event even has a slightly bizarre royal pedigree with both Princess Anne and her daughter Zara Phillips prevailing as a result of their equestrian skills.

This year, the Olympics, the Paralympics, the Ryder Cup and football's European Championships (embarrassingly an England-free zone) were all vying for the armchair fan's attention, so the calendar was jam-packed with more tales of sporting glory and despair than usual. Unusually, Britain had its fair share of the former, and here is my video rundown of some of the year's outstanding achievers (and some who were pipped to the post):

MY PREDICTIONS
• Sports Personality of the Year – Lewis Hamilton succeeding Welsh pugilist Joe Calzaghe (right). The bookmakers agree.
• Overseas Personality of the Year – Usain Bolt (just ahead of Michael Phelps/Ronaldo)
• Team of the Year – GB Olympics
• Coach of the Year – Sir Alex Ferguson

I won't ruin the show by predicting the winner of the remaining four prizes (the Young Sports Personality of the year, the Helen Rollason award, the Lifetime Achievement award and the Unsung Hero Award), but I do think, with all these presentations, it's amazing they manage to fit in any sporting highlights at all.

For many, including me, the show is less about the awards or the round up of the year's sporting highs and lows, and more about the close-up voyeurism afforded by TV of the toe-curling, stilted banter between co-hosts Sue Barker and Gary Lineker - unintentional comedy at its finest. There's always a chuckle to be had as Gary launches into a link facing the wrong camera or after yet another excruciatingly embarrassing segue between features.

In the coming days I'm going to look at the history of the award and hit the streets of this year's host city, Liverpool, to see who the public think the winners will be...

Image from www.joecalzaghe.com