Latest news with #SportsPersonality
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Lionesses star Hannah Hampton is second favourite for BBC Sports Personality of the Year after more penalty heroics in Women's Euros final
Hannah Hampton is now the second favourite to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award after her latest spot-kick heroics helped England retain their European crown. The Chelsea goalkeeper was the Lionesses' shootout star once again as they beat Spain 3-1 on penalties in Sunday's Women's Euro 2025 final in Basel, following a tense 1-1 draw after extra time. Hampton denied both Mariona Caldentey and Ballon d'Or winner Aitana Bonmati from the spot, before Salma Paralluelo fired wide – capping a second shootout masterclass from the 24-year-old at this tournament. She also saved two penalties in England's chaotic quarter-final win over Sweden, establishing herself as one of the breakout stars of the summer. It marks a remarkable rise for Hampton, who was an understudy to Mary Earps during England's Euros triumph on home soil in 2022 and again at the 2023 Women's World Cup. Earps herself won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in 2023 after saving a penalty in the World Cup final — also against Spain — albeit in a losing cause. Earps finished ahead of Stuart Broad and Katarina Johnson-Thompson in the public vote that year. According to Betfair, Hampton is now joint second-favourite at 5/1 to win SPOTY, behind only Rory McIlroy, who leads the market at Evens after a stellar season that included winning The Masters in April — his first Green Jacket and fifth major overall. Formula One star Lando Norris is also priced at 5/1, having recently claimed a hugely popular victory at Silverstone, winning the British Grand Prix for the first time in his career. The McLaren driver is also currently just 16 points behind team-mate Oscar Piastri in the race for the world drivers' championship. England captain Lucy Bronze (15/2) and fellow Lioness Leah Williamson (16/1) are also in the running, while teenage darts sensation Luke Littler is priced at 9/1. A Betfair spokesperson said: 'Hannah Hampton is the new second-favourite to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award after saving two penalties to help England win Euro 2025 on Sunday. 'Hampton, 5/1, is joined by fellow Lionesses Lucy Bronze, 15/2, and Leah Williamson, 16/1, who are amongst the contenders to win the award. Rory McIlroy remains the favourite at Evens, with Lando Norris trailing at 5/1. Meanwhile, Luke Littler is 9/1 to take home the illustrious award.' BBC SPORTS PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR 2025: LATEST ODDS Rory McIlroy – Evens Hannah Hampton – 5/1 Lando Norris – 5/1 Lucy Bronze – 15/2 (was 16/1) Luke Littler – 9/1 Leah Williamson – 16/1 (was 20/1)
Scotsman
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
BBC Sports Personality odds: who is favourite to win?
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award will be handed out at the end of 2025 - but a frontrunner has emerged 👀 Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Frontrunner for BBC's Sports Personality award has been named. List includes darts favourite, golf star and F1 driver. But who is being backed to lift the end of year prize? The sunshine might have pulled another disappearing act but we are still in the heart of summer. Unbelievable as it might be but we are well past the midway point of the year and it will be 2026 before you know it. It has been quite the dramatic first half of 2025 in the sporting world - from Liverpool securing a 20th league title to the two Lukes crashing out of the darts World Cup. The Lionesses have taken us on one mighty rollercoaster during the 2025 Women's Euros this summer - and the men's U21s have also lifted the title in their own version of the competition. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A British driver remains in the hunt for the Formula One world title - but will Lando Norris be able to surpass his teammate and rival Oscar Piastri? It would be one hell of a story. In a little less than five months time, the BBC will gather to celebrate the best sporting achievements of the year - and hand out the much coveted SPOTY award. But who is in the running right now? Who are the early favourites for the 2025 Sports Personality? The presenters of this BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2024 | BBC/Paul Cooper Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson lifted the trophy last December following her incredible performance at the 2024 games in Paris. Sidenote: what an incredible few weeks that was, wish I could jump back and experience those highs once again. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The BBC will once again crown a winner at the end of the year - and attention has started to turn towards who are the runners and riders for 2025. has issued its odds, with one name jumping out as a clear favourite at this point. Rory McIlroy - 4/6 Lando Norris - 13/2 Luke Littler - 8/1 Ellie Kildunne - 28/1 Jack Draper - 40/1 Lauren Price - 40/1 Leah Williamson - 45/1 We obviously still have a long way to go in 2025 and the final of the Women's Euros on Sunday (July 27) could dramatically shake-up the odds. If the Lionesses manage to lift the trophy once again, someone like Leah Williamson could really jump up the list - for example. Beth Mead was named SPOTY in 2022, following England's triumph at the Euros that summer. Her international teammate Mary Earps won it the following year - for her role in the Lionesses' run to the World Cup final, so there is precedent. Ellie Kildunne is one to keep your eyes on as she is one of the star players for the Red Roses - England Women's rugby team. The team will be playing in the World Cup, on home soil none-the-less, starting in late August and triumph in the tournament could see her odds tumble. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Equally, if Lando Norris manages to surpass Piastri and secure the F1 World Drivers' Championship he could easily become one of the frontrunners. Drive to Survive remains a very popular show on Netflix and he is a known name. But if the award was to go the way of the current odds and Rory McIlroy capped off the year in which he finally won The Masters with a SPOTY award - it would be the first time since Lewis Hamilton in 2020 that a male athlete has lifted the trophy. If you love TV, check out our Screen Babble podcast to get the latest in TV and film.
The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mary Earps: Queen of Stops review – if only this history-making goalkeeper was still in the England squad
Mary Earps: Queen of Stops first arrived on iPlayer at the end of May. Even then, it was unfortunate timing, appearing just three days after the goalkeeper's shock announcement that she would be retiring from international football with immediate effect. It comes to terrestrial television a month later, and does feel like a documentary made for an England Euros campaign with Earps in the squad. Nevertheless, it channels her ambition, drive and amazing achievements into a pleasant hour that should spark memories, or premonitions, of the tensions to come over the next few weeks. Sportspeople are not always the most absorbing of subjects. To me, this seems a fair exchange, in the great cosmic talent pool: you can either be superhumanly athletic, or you can be charismatic. To be both is borderline greedy. This balancing act does mean that great documentaries about sporting stars are few and far between. Earps has always been a bit different. When she won the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year award in 2023, the personality part shone as much as the sport. With England, she had won the Euros in 2022, and got to a World Cup final just a year later, taking small consolation from walking away with the Golden Glove if not the ultimate prize. She had also fought for an England women's goalkeeper's replica shirt to go on sale, after realising there was no plan to release one. Here, it sounds as if she spoke out, despite knowing it could be a risky move. This documentary hones in on the two history-making tournaments, but it does have time to whiz through what got her there in the first place. She reminisces about playing against Hucknall Town for West Bridgford Colts as a youngster and how saving a penalty became her lightbulb moment. (It's another side of Hucknall, which is having a big 2025 on TV, as the setting for the outstanding drama What It Feels Like For a Girl.) She bounced around various clubs from 2011 until she signed for Manchester United in 2019. This serves as a solid overview of women's football over the past two decades. Like many women, she wasn't sure that football could be a sustainable career, and she describes having to 'gamble' on whether it was worth taking that chance on herself. It's safe to say that her career gamble paid off. Earps comes across as a considered decision-maker, even when taking on Nike over the replica shirt. She describes her personal low, of finally getting her chance to start for England under Phil Neville, only to receive 'brutal feedback' following a loss to Germany. She was not called up again, and remembers it being a 'very lonely' time. Loneliness is a theme. From her current training ground at Paris Saint-Germain, she talks about how the keeper's lot can be a solitary one. They train separately, are analysed separately; other goalkeepers, as she has recently learned, are competition. In fact, by 2021, Earps had, notoriously, almost given up on international football. It took a new England manager, Sarina Wiegman, to spot her talent and put her trust in her for the now infamous Euros of 2022. It is strange to look back and think that it was ever a risk, but Earps says she thinks people questioned both her experience and Wiegman's decision-making. We all know how she responded to the pressure, though there are some nice anecdotes here, such as a revelation about what the England captain, Leah Williamson, shouted in her ear after they beat Spain in the quarter finals. During the World Cup, Earps' parents briefly went viral when they were interviewed by a reporter who had no idea who they were and wanted to know how they got their hands on a goalkeeper's shirt. Sadly, they don't reference that lovely moment here, but her mother and her brother pop over to Paris to see her, and, in the case of her brother, to tease her, in a way that only siblings can. Elsewhere, there are the standard supportive tales from her teammates. The eternally good value Ella Toone turns up and jokes that she's 'talking about Mazza again', before discussing their sisterly relationship. Alessia Russo talks about Earp's 'tunnel vision' on game day. Lucy Bronze and Jill Scott recall Earps' early days in the squad, and Wiegman talks about the potential she saw in her. Watching replays of those thrilling moments from 2022, and from the 2023 World Cup – the goals scored, but of course, the crucial saves, too – should be more than enough to rev England fans up for the start of another Euros campaign, though this documentary is also bittersweet, given that Earps won't be there to play her part in it. Mary Queen of Stops aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now.
Daily Mail
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Revealed: Steve Rider's 20-year grudge with Gary Lineker after ex-Match of the Day host 'took his job' - as iconic broadcaster sends parting shot following retirement
Broadcasting great Steve Rider has sensationally claimed that former Match of the Day host Gary Lineker 'took his job'. Rider's 48-year-career in the industry came to an end on Sunday as he was part of ITV4's presentation team for the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park. He became a familiar face on British TV screens after becoming a regular presenter on BBC 's Grandstand. Rider also led coverage for rugby, golf, motorsports and rowing events for the BBC, along with Sports Personality of the Year. He then left the BBC in 2005 to join ITV, where he became the anchor of their F1 and World Cup coverage. Now his feud with ex-Match of the Day anchor Lineker, which stretches back two decades, can be revealed. When he returned to ITV in 2005, Rider was said to be unimpressed by the BBC's decision to replace him as its leading golf presenter with Gary Lineker. Speaking to The Telegraph, he said: 'Most other observers knew that Gary was the wrong man in the wrong job.' Rider also expressed surprise at Lineker's zeal to become involved with politics while working for the organisation. He added: 'To put forward his opinions so energetically, you need to step outside the framework of the BBC. 'That message was never convincingly conveyed to him by the BBC, and that's where they are at fault. 'He needed people looking after him before he pressed the button on some fairly volatile retweets. He needed to be saved from himself. So, there was a kind of inevitability about it.' Those comments come a decade after he described the R&A - golf's governing body - of being 'pompous' and acting as though they were 'superior beings'. Further scathing comments to The Golf Paper in 2015 saw him state: 'For four years, the R&A and most other observers knew that Gary was the wrong man in the wrong job. Hazel Irvine has just delivered once again at the Open presentation skills of the highest quality. 'Not many people can do that and Gary certainly came up short. 'Roger Mosey, the head of sport, knew Gary was a golf fanatic and was further encouraged by Gary apparently volunteering for the Masters vacancy within a few minutes of my exit from Television Centre. 'But if Mosey thought long and hard before offering Gary the golf job, it's even more baffling. Match of the Day is scripted and rehearsed.
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Crowning York's sports personality of the year - who has your vote?
SOME of York's best sporting talent is set to be recognised in this next awards category. Brought to you by The York Roast Co. - the Sports Personality of the Year award at the YO1 Radio Sports Awards will go to someone who has achieved success at a regional, national or international level in the last year. Recognising the commitment, dedication and success achieved by the best of York's sporting talent. Five finalists have made the cut, and here they are: Taekwondo and Karate star Kate Hambleton has shot to the number one ranking in both Taekwondo and Karate, earning a gold medal for both sports at the British Universities and Colleges Sport, as well as a gold medal at the JKS Karate World Championships in 2024. (clockwise from the top) Millie Bell, Kate Hambleton, and Marie Elcock (Image: Supplied) A different style of combat athlete follows Kate, in the form of British Heavyweight Champion wrestler Indigo Jones. Indigo has been representing York in the ring nationally, showing his persona off to a wide array of fans. Taking on feats of endurance is our next finalist: Millie Bell. Millie swam the English Channel solo, in 13 hours and 11 minutes, and has represented Great Britain at the 2025 Ice Swimming World Championships. Adding to her achievements, Millie won two bronze medals in both the 500 metre and 100 metre freestyle events at age-group level. Four-time British Transplant gold medallist Louise Prashad joins the group. Completing ultramarathons and raising funs for organ donation, Louise has kept her personal health journey at the centre of her athletic achievements. Marie Elcock completes the list, as a champion squash player and coach Marie has continued to inspire and support a range of athletes at Stillington Squash Club in the face of adversity.
