Tony McCoy is Sports Personality of the Year

Colonel Sanders

From the Racingpost

A well deserved award and at last recognition from outside of the sport for his great achievements

mike65

Interesting how the biz built a campaign around him, esp as being a jumps jockey he doesn't have any "glitz/glamour" attached to him. Was expecting a golfer to get it myself.

abouttobebanned

There's only so many years you can go on getting ignored Mike. The man was champion of his sports for something like 15 years in a row.

handsomecake

i thought ruby had a better season than him.didnt ruby break the chelt record for winners

mike65

Well BBC Sports Personality of the Year is a pretty vacuous title in truth! Still I'm happy that he's been given some high profile recognition.

Colonel Sanders

Results are up on the Racingpost facebook page. He got over 40% of the votes!

barney4001

If ever a jockey deserved to win this accolade it was Frankie Dettorie when he rode 7 winners in one day at the big Ascot meeting years ago,probably because he was an italian he did not win it,he finished second

kincsem

From Betfair forum

ropes 20 Dec 10 01:40

Was just wondering how much it would cost to secure you a victory (if a blind eye was/is turned to multi voting).
At 15p for a vote from a BT landline, and the shortness of the message you get when you call, I'd guess you could make 4 calls a minute no bother. Perhaps you could do more but we'll play it safe for now. No idea exactly how long the lines were open for but if they were for 90 mins, that would mean you could make 90 x 4 = 360 votes for your chosen candidate. Total cost = £54.

300 people/phones doing this for the 90 mins, would net you 108,000 votes and cost you £16,200.
I know you need 600 people/phones but lets double that as we know AP got over 290,000 votes. That means you have 216,000 votes at a cost of £32,400.
Going one stage further, to get 270,000 votes, using 750 phones, it would cost you £40,500.
Pay the 750 people £60 for their 90 minutes work (£45,000 total) and you have SPOTY 2011 pretty much in the bag for a fraction over £85,000.
A few bets spread around the UK and you could even show a profit (before sponsorship deals etc follow).

kincsem

Racing For Change were promoting him. This could be a short term gain but a long term negative for racing. You can't try to stamp out race fixing and then we have this. Or has racing suddenly become so popular that A P McCoy got more than four times the votes of the person who finished second?

Lapin

In the eyes of the great unwashed it doesn't matter if you are an exceptional ambassador for your sport with 3000+ winners and 15 consecutive champion jockey titles.

Its only when you win the Liverpool Lottery in April that you have truly arrived.

Whatever about the merits of the voting system and the prestige of the award, there is no doubt in my mind that McCoy was the correct choice last night.

Long overdue and well deserved. Congrats to A.P.

smartaform

barney4001 wrote: »

If ever a jockey deserved to win this accolade it was Frankie Dettorie when he rode 7 winners in one day at the big Ascot meeting years ago,probably because he was an italian he did not win it,he finished second

Do you seriously believe that one days glory outweighs 15 years of dominance??

Nulty

Brilliant, I shouted with excitement when he was announced the winner. I'm delighted.

Trust McCoy to get a winner when theres not even any racing on!

Nulty

smartaform wrote: »

Do you seriously believe that one days glory outweighs 15 years of dominance??

Its bigger than racing. Thats why its an achievement. Whatever the circumstances of his win its an award that is bigger than racing. Sure it doesn't equal a lifetimes effort and success but its recognition that effort and success in a wider sphere.

Sprouts

handsomecake wrote: »

i thought ruby had a better season than him.didnt ruby break the chelt record for winners

Ah sure Ruby gives himself an award acceptance speech each night every night in the bathroom mirror before he brushes his teeth to remind himself of his peerless brilliance.

meriwether

kincsem wrote: »

Racing For Change were promoting him. This could be a short term gain but a long term negative for racing. You can't try to stamp out race fixing and then we have this. Or has racing suddenly become so popular that A P McCoy got more than four times the votes of the person who finished second?

One has nothing to do with the other.

Secondly, the guy in second place was a darts player. Quite simply, the public didn't take to the golfers, and McCoy was easily the storngest of the non-golfers (and stronger than the golfers).

fr wishy washy

Surely the most "Non personality" to win the award,in my opinion he has no trace of a personality and is as cold a person as I've ever seen on TV.

His sporting achievements stand up to inspection (hats off to him) but maybe they should rename the award to Sports person of the year?

Lapin

fr wishy washy wrote: »

Surely the most "Non personality" to win the award,in my opinion he has no trace of a personality and is as cold a person as I've ever seen on TV.

His sporting achievements stand up to inspection (hats off to him) but maybe they should rename the award to Sports person of the year?

Eh

Steve Davis 1988
Nick Faldo 1989
Nigel Mansell 1992

Imagine being stuck in a lift with those three !

fr wishy washy

Lapin wrote: »

Eh

Steve Davis 1988
Nick Faldo 1989
Nigel Mansell 1992

Imagine being stuck in a lift with those three !

That just reinforces my point Lapin,the above people have shag all personality as well.:)

I respect AP as a jockey/sportsman but think he is very cold (even before the Racing UK thing),I just think the personality part is a complete misnomer.

meriwether

fr wishy washy wrote: »

Surely the most "Non personality" to win the award,in my opinion he has no trace of a personality and is as cold a person as I've ever seen on TV.

His sporting achievements stand up to inspection (hats off to him) but maybe they should rename the award to Sports person of the year?

He's always struck me as quite genuine amd sincere. He was entertaining when he was on with Ruby oin the Miriam O'Callaghan show yonks ago. He's well able to take the wee out of himself.
Ruby was good as well that night, but I really find it hard to warm to him for some reason. He always strikes me as being a bollox, to be frank.

mdwexford

meriwether wrote: »

One has nothing to do with the other.

Secondly, the guy in second place was a darts player. Quite simply, the public didn't take to the golfers, and McCoy was easily the storngest of the non-golfers (and stronger than the golfers).

Not easily or anything close to it.

Lapin wrote: »

Eh

Steve Davis 1988
Nick Faldo 1989
Nigel Mansell 1992

Imagine being stuck in a lift with those three !

Davis is hilarious.