BBC Sports Personality of the Year is on BBC One at 8pm tonight. The candidates for the main award are:
Mark Cavendish (cycling)
Age: 26
Place of birth: Douglas, Isle of Man
Achievements: Cavendish won five stages of this year's Tour de France, bringing his total of stage wins in the gruelling race over the past four years to 20. He became the first person to win the final stage on the Champs-Elysees three years in a row as he sealed a first ever green jersey triumph for a British cyclist in the history of the event.
Devil's Advocate: A cyclist as favourite in a non-Olympic year would usually come as a surprise but, such are Cavendish's achievements in the Tour de France, no one would be shocked at the outcome if he wins.
Odds: 1/3 fav
Darren Clarke (golf)
Age: 43
Place of birth: Dungannon, Northern Ireland
Achievements: Clarke finally won his first major in 2011, and it proved to be a special victory, coming in this year's Open Championship at Royal St George in Sandwich. In an emotional post-victory speech, Clarke dedicated his win to his two children and late wife Heather, who lost her battle with breast cancer in 2006. He said: "In terms of what's going through my heart, there's obviously somebody who is watching from up above there, and I know she'd be very proud of me. But I think she'd be more proud of my two boys and them at home watching more than anything else. It's been a long journey to get here."
Devil's Advocate: Clarke's victory came from out of the blue and may be regarded in time as something of a one-off. Also, there are fears of a three-way golf split and a two-way Northern Irish golf split in the vote.
Odds: 5/1
Mo Farah (athletics)
Age: 28
Place of birth: Mogadishu, Somalia
Achievements: Farah provided the highlight of the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea for Team GB by taking the silver medal in the 10,000m, and then, with brilliant timing, the gold in the 5,000m. He became the British man to win a global title over either distance.
Devil's Advocate: Farah and his coach Alberto Salazar have stated on record explicitly that their work will not be done until the Somalia-born athletes has won both the 5,000m and 10,000m in the Olympics. If Farah manages to do that at London 2012 then it would be hard to bet against him for next year.
Odds: 12/1
Rory McIlroy (golf)
Age: 22
Place of birth: Carryduff, Co. Down, Northern Ireland
Achievements: McIlroy recovered from a horrible final-day collapse in the first major of the year at the US Masters to become the youngest winner of the US Open since 1923. McIlroy carded a record score of 16-under-par for an eight-shot win to carry off his first major and the young Northern Irishman also moved to a new career-high number two in the world rankings in November.
Devil's Advocate: Like Clarke, McIlroy will be worried about how the golf vote is likely to be split - but, unlike Clarke at least, McIlroy's age gives him the chance to take Tiger Woods' place and dominate his sport for years to come.
Odds: 16/1
Luke Donald (golf)
Age: 34
Place of birth: Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
Achievements: Donald became number one golfer in the world rankings after winning the BMW PGA Championship in May 2011. He later completed a historic double by winning both the PGA Tour money list and the European Race to Dubai, becoming the first ever player to do this. Finally, he also won the PGA Player of the Year and PGA Tour Player of the Year awards, becoming the first Englishman to win either award.
Devil's Advocate: Donald deserves his number one ranking on the basis of his great consistency, just like Clarke and McIlroy until this year, the Englishman will continued to be dogged by the lack of a major title.
Odds: 16/1
Alastair Cook (cricket)
Age: 26
Place of birth: Gloucester, Gloucestershire
Achievements: Cook made a mockery of Australian predictions that he was a weak link in the England batting line-up by proving instrumental in the successful defence of the Ashes, a first victory Down Under for England since 1986-7. The Essex batsmen scored 766 runs in the five-match series at an average of 127.66 - second only to Wally Hammond in the 1920s. Additionally, he occupied the crease for over 36 hours, a world record in a five-Test series and an English record even including six-Test series. Back home, Cook was part of the side which beat Sri Lanka 1-0 and India 4-0 on the way to becoming the best team in the world, and he also won his first series as national team captain in the One Day Internationals, beating Sri Lanka 3-2.
Devil's Advocate: Cook looked less impressive as ODI captain in the 4-1 defeat to India which followed the Sri Lanka win but he is a young captain and will learn from his errors. Perhaps more crucially, the Ashes win was almost a year ago and England have not played since September, meaning Cook has hardly featured on the sports' pages recently.
Odds: 66/1
Andrew Strauss (cricket)
Age: 34
Place of birth: Johannesburg, South Africa
Achievements: Strauss led England to successive Ashes victories, captaining the side to three innings victories in the first successful tour in Australia since 1986-7. Strauss played his part Down Under, averaging 43.85 with the bat - but perhaps his finest moment as national team skipper came this summer as his team finally reached the peak of the world rankings after beating India 4-0.
Devil's Advocate:
Odds: 200/1
Dai Greene (athletics)
Age: 25
Place of birth: Felinfoel, Carmarthernshire, Wales
Achievements: After Mo Farah (above), Welsh hurdler Greene won Team GB's only other gold medal in the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu, taking the title with a fine comeback in the 400m hurdles. He is the current holder of European, Commenwealth and world titles in his discipline.
Devil's Advocate: It may seem a little unfair, and certainly does not detract from Greene's achievement, but it is unlikely for an athlete to win SPOTY in a non-Olympic year.
Odds: 200/1
Amir Khan (boxing)
Age: 25
Place of birth: Bolton, Lancashire
Achievements: Having earlier beaten the previously unbeaten Irishman Paul McCloskey in April, Khan unified the IBF and WBA light-welterweight world titles by beating American Zab Judah in May with a KO in the fifth round.
Devil's Advocate: Khan hardly helped his cause within the last two weeks after losing his titles to Lamont Petersen in a split decision even though, controversially, the Bolton boxer was twice deducted two points by referee Joe Cooper for pushing.
Odds: 250/1
Andy Murray (tennis)
Age: 24
Place of birth: Glasgow, Scotland
Achievements: Murray enjoyed perhaps his most consistent year yet, reaching the last four of all of the Grand Slam tournaments, including the semi finals of the French Open for the first time. He made the final of the Australian Open for the second successive year, and finished the season with a flurry of wins in the Far East, winning in Thailand, Japan and Shanghai.
Devil's Advocate: Like Donald (above) in the golf, for all of Murray's consistency in the season as a whole, the Scotsman's lack of a Grand Slam title remains a problem. Murray also had to pull out of the end-of-season ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena in London.
Odds: 250/1
OTHER SPOTY PRIZES
England's cricket team should make it a hat-trick in the Team of the Year award, having won as recently as 2005 and 2009, after retaining the Ashes abroad with three innings victories then becoming the best team in the world.
Following on from that, Andy Flower has a good chance of being named Coach of the Year with his main rival, Graham Henry, discounted on the basis that the award relates to British sport.
It would be a shame then if Graham Henry could not represent New Zealand's Rugby World Cup win by taking the Overseas SPOTY Award, and it is unfortunate that fly half Dan Carter was injured for so much of the tournament, otherwise he would have undoubtedly been a very strong candidate. This is a very competitive year for the Overseas Award with Novak Djokovic's year in tennis and Sebastian Vettel's dominance of F1 ripe also for selection.
Finally, of the main awards, the Young SPOTY Award is between:
- Seventeen-year-old cyclist Lucy Garner who became the junior road race world champion in Copenhagen in 2011, making her Britain's first medallist in the event since Nicole Cooke, who claimed victory in 2000 and 2001. What chance a cycling double tonight?
- Seventeen-year-old Paralympic swimmer Ellie Simmonds who won four medals in individual events at the IPC European Swimming Championships in Berlin - two gold, a silver and a bronze. Simmonds previously won the award in 2008.
- And golfer Lauren Taylor, also 17. Lauren won the 2011 Ladies' British Open Amateur Championship at Royal Portrush and became the youngest ever winner, breaking a record that had stood for 112 years. Perhaps she will make up for Clarke, McIlroy and Donald if they fall short.
There will be three other awards given at the ceremony at the BBC in Salford - the Helen Rollason Award, for someone who has shown "outstanding achievement in the face of adversity"; the Unsung Hero Award, for someone who "has given their time and talents for free to enable others to participate in sport"; and the Lifetime Achievement Award which has been won this year by Sir Steve Redgrave, Britain's greatest ever Olympian.
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