BBC battle of the sexes

Two Observer writers argue the claims of British sport stars for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year

Vote Becky, by Anna Kessel

Come on the women,' says Rebecca Adlington, the double Olympic gold medallist from Mansfield. It is a rallying cry. In the 54 years the BBC have been running their Sports Personality of the Year award, there have been 13 female winners. Adlington is shocked that there have not been more.

It is even more surprising when you consider that the number of female winners per decade has decreased. Only in this century has the trend begun to reverse with Paula Radcliffe winning the award in 2002 to end an 11-year drought for female winners.

We have to look to the Sixties for the most numerous celebrations of women's sporting achievement. Anita Lonsbrough, the competition's first female winner in 1962, was one of four women to triumph in that decade (three back-to-back). Since then the numbers have declined with three in the Seventies, two in the Eighties (if you include Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean), and one in the Nineties.

This year the competition is tougher than ever for both sexes. It has been a great year for British sport and the Olympic gold medallists go head to head with Lewis Hamilton, who won the Formula One world championship title so dramatically last weekend. The announcement of the shortlist of 10 is just over a week away, but as far as the bookies are concerned the contest is a done deal. Hamilton is hot favourite to pick up the award in Liverpool on Sunday 14 December. Adlington - at the head of the betting for so long - is predicted to come second, ahead of Chris Hoy, the cyclist who claimed three gold medals in Beijing. According to the odds, nobody else has a look-in. Of the others only Andy Murray, who is yet to win a grand-slam title, and Joe Calzaghe, retiring this year, are rated shorter than 100-1.

What a shame, then, for the many outstanding female athletes of 2008, possibly the strongest representation ever. Nicole Cooke, who won the road-racing double of Olympics and world championship - a feat never before achieved by any rider, male or female - is not even on the radar. That will come as no surprise to the Welsh cyclist who, shortlisted in 2006 when she won the women's Tour de France and was ranked No 1 in the world, was not voted into the top three.

And what of Christine Ohuruogu, who was on last year's shortlist, but polled 0.71 per cent of the vote. This should be her year of recognition, as the Olympic 400m gold medallist also holds the world championship and Commonwealth Games titles, an extraordinary achievement in a globally competitive sport. There are others: Victoria Pendleton, Olympic sprint champion and twice world championship gold medallist; and Rebecca Romero, who swapped sculling for cycling to win a second consecutive Olympic medal, this one gold, and in a different sport - only the second woman to 'double up'.

Do sports stars even care about winning the award any more? What is a tacky-looking camera tripod trophy compared with the beautifully crafted gold and inlaid white jade medals from Beijing, or the multi-million-pound endorsements that come from winning the championship of the world's richest sport, Formula One?

Adlington certainly does. 'I am so excited about the awards,' says the 19-year-old. 'I always watch it on TV and this year I actually get to go. I just think it's so brilliant that people in different sports are going up against each other, it makes it such an honour to win. I'd love to win it. Who wouldn't? But as soon as Lewis Hamilton won on the weekend I thought, "Oh God, yeah, he's got it in the bag". He's in the public eye all the time, he's famous and not just for his driving, he's very wealthy, he's got a fabulous girlfriend, he's everything. I just really want to come second or third, please!'

Who, in her eyes, would be a deserving winner? 'I'd really, really, really love to see an Olympian win it,' she says. 'Whether it's me, or Chris Hoy, or whoever, an Olympian would just be... I mean the Olympics are only every four years, aren't they? It would be good for a minority sport to win it, not football or motor sport, it would be nice for a sport that doesn't get all the glory and acclaim, for it to be recognised and raise its profile. I'd like that.'

Phil Hall, former editor of News of the World and Hello! magazine now turned PR agent, is a key figure in the world of sport and he feels the award has lost its bling. 'I don't think it is as important as it used to be. When you've won the Formula One championship, a BBC award is not very significant.

'It has lost a bit of its status with some of its winners, like Zara Phillips. It didn't feel like her achievement was really the superstar winner you expect. Now it's just another award, it's pretty forgettable. The programme used to be unique in the British TV landscape but now we've got award fatigue. It's always entertaining, but it just doesn't feel quite as prestigious.'

In earlier years it would have been easy to agree with Hall. But this year's list of contenders, and British sporting achievements, has never been stronger. Last year 630,000 viewers voted. This year the BBC expect closer to a million.

The whole concept of the award is complicated. Do you win on sporting achievement? Or personality? Or some amalgamation of the two? How do you pit one sporting achievement against another? Can Adlington's two gold medals be judged better than Hoy's three? Hall reckons not, although he says Adlington's gold-medal celebration alone could win it for her. 'You can't forget the sheer joy on her face, the greatest reaction to winning a sports event this year.' How much does difficulty of execution, global competition and lack of precedence in an achievement come into it?

A sport does not have to be hugely popular to produce an award winner. Only four footballers have won, compared to 17 athletes, seven F1 drivers and five boxers. TV coverage and viewing figures are also inconclusive factors in the voting. Of the last five winners only two had their sporting victories broadcast live on BBC television, and before Calzaghe won the award last year only 300,000 watched the Setanta coverage of his super-middleweight title fight. That compares rather poorly to this year's viewing figures for the Olympics - an estimated 40m (70 per cent of the population) watched at least 15 minutes of the BBC coverage - and Hamilton's victory, which attracted an average 8.6m viewers on ITV, the same number as watched the 2007 Sports Personality show. Even Adlington's 800m freestyle gold medal-winning performance, broadcast at 3am in the UK, attracted more viewers than Calzaghe at 500,000.

While Caroline McAteer, a former PR adviser to David Beckham - winner in 2001 - believes the award is won purely on sporting merit, Stuart Higgins, who looks after Murray and Danny Cipriani, believes a sports star's relationship with the public has a significant influence. Murray's 40-1 odds on winning the award are the shortest outside the top three, and point to his increased popularity. 'There's been a perceived change in [Murray's] personality,' says Higgins. 'His outstanding performance in beating [Rafael] Nadal at the US Open, the stand-out tennis performance of the year, has got everyone talking about tennis again. He's sealed a love affair with the British public.'

That being the case, how can sportswomen increase their chances of winning the award? It is all down to coverage, says Higgins. 'It's not a question of women being under represented in sport, but to get exposure on an annual basis you need to be in a regular sport. It's difficult to get eye-catching performances if you're not in the public arena month in, month out. Hopefully that will change as the likes of Laura Robson [in tennis] come through.'

Until then there is Adlington. A sports winner as well as a sports personality. One thing is for sure, a vote for Adlington ticks all the boxes in anyone's criteria. She is an outstanding talent in her sport - Britain's most successful swimmer of either sex in 100 years - and a record breaker. Her 800m race-winning performance broke Janet Evans' world mark, which had stood for 19 years. Other swimming records last for a fraction of that time. Adlington was the mould breaker: no British female had won an Olympic swimming medal since 1984.

Adlington had no easy ride to the top, no financial backing. Even now she earns just £10,000 a year from her sport. The hard work she put in to reach the top went largely unnoticed. Despite her recovery from glandular fever and chronic fatigue syndrome to win gold in the 800m freestyle at the world championships in April, few had heard of her until she clinched Olympic gold.

And Becky has the personality - humble, down to earth, unchanged by fame, she says 'brilliant!' and pulls a silly face without a hint of self-consciousness. She is proud of her home town of Mansfield, and the calibre of celebrity she dreams of meeting says it all - not Beyoncé or Beckham, but comedian Peter Kay.

Some will argue that the drama of Hamilton's title-winning drive in Interlagos, clinching the F1 title on the last corner of the last lap of the last race of the season, is unmatchable. But then remember Adlington's own nail-biter, in a sport similarly lambasted for a lack of overtaking during competition. With 50m to go in the 400m, Adlington was a body length down on America's 'female Phelps', Katie Hoff, but drew strength enough to pull ahead and win by 0.07 of a second.

Next year Hamilton will be back on the track and back on the television aiming to win another title. And the year after that and the year after that. For Adlington there is just 2012, and a four-year wait before it. In between she will be back in the Nottingham University pool, which she shares with students and amateurs, grafting, away from the spotlight.

In this small interlude, while the memory of her achievements in Beijing's Water Cube are still strong, it seems only fair to give Adlington the chance to shine.

Vote Lewis, by Maurice Hamilton

Not that much prompting was needed but Lewis Hamilton automatically won more than 1,500 potential votes on Wednesday when he returned to the McLaren headquarters to be feted as world champion. Hamilton's approval rating was not simply because he had brought home the drivers' title to the Woking-based team for the first time since 1999. Nor was it because he is, like the majority of the workforce, British and proud of it.

The genuine warmth for Hamilton had been generated among that massive workforce by the dramatic way in which he uses the product of their endeavours when he is aboard the silver McLaren-Mercedes and, just as important, his uncomplicated attitude when both feet are planted back on the ground. It is not far-fetched to suggest that Hamilton also won over those among the media present who had not met him before and who witnessed a natural charm as he held the audience in the palm of his hand.

True, Hamilton's job was made easier by supportive colleagues affected by the tunnel vision that comes with a burning ambition to beat the other nine teams on a fortnightly basis throughout the season. But that should not detract from the ability of a 23-year-old to be completely at ease on stage and make unscripted jokes with his infectious chuckle about the need for the team to have more holidays and pay rises.

Hamilton also dealt easily with the cameras and microphones, and the predictable questions about living in Geneva and coping with the trappings of having become an international sporting phenomenon in less than two years. It is a topic that seems to generate more interest than the supreme talent that helped him become a high earner in need of the same tax advantages enjoyed by David Coulthard, Jenson Button and, previously, Nigel Mansell and Sir Jackie Stewart among numerous sports personalities living abroad.

'There are many reasons for staying in Geneva,' Hamilton says. 'When you're away in a different world like Formula One, doing all these amazing things, then I am able to come back and do my training without any distractions whatsoever. It's about getting away and being able to do what I need to do to win the world championship. I love being around the mountains; the air is just beautiful. But I love coming home. I'll always love that because this, to me, is where I really live.'

Hamilton had arrived back in England the previous day and immediately immersed himself in the comfort of home in Hertfordshire by having one of his favourite meals - roast chicken - with his brother, father and stepmother before slipping out under the cover of darkness with his girlfriend, Nicole Scherzinger, to watch the latest Bond movie in a cinema in Stevenage.

Had anyone spotted Hamilton and engaged him in conversation, they would have been impressed by the firm handshake, immediate eye contact and complete lack of pretension. It is something regular F1 reporters have become accustomed to during briefings on arrival at each grand prix. Hamilton is habitually pleasant and articulate, facing awkward questions and shunning the use of pre-determined sound bites.

The only note of discord occurred in July, when a series of driving errors in Canada and France had led to justifiable criticism in print, a new experience for a driver in only his second season. Hamilton chooses not to read the cuttings, but someone in his management clearly had and, accidently or otherwise, wound up their young charge. Typically, Hamilton quickly put the matter behind him and normal service was resumed all-round as he drove to a brilliant victory at Silverstone. But the tetchy incident with the media merely served to underline the danger of Hamilton being over-managed and packaged at the expense of a capable character completely at ease with himself.

Paradoxically, the policy of being honest and direct has led to accusations of arrogance when Hamilton says exactly what he thinks about his ability to win races. It is the healthy self-confidence needed to take on the best drivers in the world rather than an inflated ego or a bluffing tactic designed to destabilise his rivals.

'That's just the way he is,' Ron Dennis, the chairman of McLaren and Hamilton's mentor for the past 10 years, says. 'What you see is what you get. There's no side to him. He's a special person. I just can't understand it when people say he's arrogant. I'm amazed because there is no arrogance; none at all. He's a really decent human being.

'There were obviously questions [last Wednesday] that were going to be difficult to handle. You didn't see anyone with their hand up his back. His answers were from the heart; that's how he goes through his life. I just can't understand why there has to be this British attitude where there has got to be a negative angle when someone has achieved something. Lewis has been given an opportunity, and he has embraced it.'

Having come from a humble background, Hamilton fully appreciates the assistance provided by McLaren on the basis that their protégé has the skill to utilise it to the full. It is one thing to be given a front-running car, quite another to use it to beat Fernando Alonso, a two-time world champion. Despite his success on the track, there is not a trace of conceit, particularly when Hamilton talks about the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, for which he was runner-up in 2007. He is odds-on favourite to go one better next month.

'Last year, I was in awe of all the great names I was surrounded by. I couldn't believe it,' he says. 'If I get invited again, it will be a pleasure to be able to meet the people I admire. Yes, of course it would be fantastic to win. But this has been an Olympic year and I truly believe there are others who deserve it; people like Rebecca Adlington. And then there is Ellie Simmonds [Britain's youngest-ever individual Paralympic gold medallist]. Fantastic. It was just amazing to see their achievements.'

Those of us fortunate to have witnessed the early days of world champions such as Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher and Nigel Mansell agree that, his competitive car notwithstanding, Hamilton possesses an exceptional talent that has been used to the maximum during one of the most competitive seasons in the history of F1.

Lewis Hamilton is not perfect by any means, but his natural gifts in the car and an engaging, honest personality out of it deserve to be recognised.

To read the choices of other Observer writers, click here