SPOTY winners and predos

ACTUAL WINNERS
Sports Personality of the Year: Ryan Giggs
Runners up: Jenson Button (second), Jessica Ennis (third)

Young Sports Personality of the Year: Tom Daley
Runners up: Heather Watson, Jodie Williams

Overseas Sports Personality of the Year: Usain Bolt
Runner up: Roger Federer

Team of the Year: England men's cricket team
Coach of the Year: Fabio Capello, England football coach
Lifetime Achievement Award: Seve Ballesteros
Unsung Hero Award: Doreen Adcock, Milton Keynes swimming tutor
Helen Rollason Award: Major Phil Packer
Special Award: Eddie Izzard


MY SPOTY PICKS
Sports Personality of the Year: Jenson Button
Runners up: Jessica Ennis, Andrew Strauss

JENSON BUTTON should emulate new McLaren team mate Lewis Hamilton by winning Sports Personality of the Year after he made it two British Formula One world champions in successive years.

Button's blistering start to the season saw him win six of the first seven races for Brawn GP who were formed from the ashes of the defunct Honda team just weeks before the start of the season.

Indeed, it is these circumstances, with Button going from being unsure of having an F1 seat to leading from start to finish, which made his world crown all the more remarkable.

The Sports Personality of the Year award is almost always a source of great debate - and this year's choice was no different.

Button faces stiff competition from heptathlete Jessica Ennis and triple jumper Phillips Idowu after Team GB's successful World Championships in Berlin.

Like Button, Ennis led from start to finish. She set a personal best score of 6,731 points to win gold and compensate somewhat for the cruel blow when she missed the Beijing Olympics through injury.

Idowu achieved what he had threatened to do for some time and a personal best of 17.73m ensured he went one better than his Olympic silver medal in Beijing.

Three other world champions are on the shortlist - gymnast Beth Tweddle, heavyweight boxer David Haye and 15-year-old diver Tom Daley.

Tweddle, who was third in the 2006 edition of SPOTY, overcame the disappointment of failing in her signature event, the bars, to win gold for a fantastic floor routine at London's O2 Arena.

Haye gave away nearly one foot in height and seven stone in weight but his points victory over Nikolay Valuev in Nuremburg made him Britain's first heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis retired in 2003.

There is more on Tom Daley's achievements below.

England cricket captain Andrew Strauss led from the front, finishing the highest run scorer in the Ashes series as the hosts beat Australia 2-1 for the second time in four years.

Meanwhile, Mark Cavendish also had a summer that he is unlikely to forget after his six stage wins in the gruelling Tour de France, including the finale on the Champs-Elysses.

The remaining two candidates are tennis player Andy Murray, who reached a career-high world ranking as number two, and PFA Player of the Year Ryan Giggs, who won a record 11th Premier League title with Manchester United.

But, for me, it is Button who should take the prestigious BBC prize.

Not just for his brilliant start after months of uncertainty but also for the way he kept his cool as his lead was cut in the second part of the season.

His attacking performance in the penultimate Grand Prix in Brazil, when he went from 14th on the grid to finish fifth, was a champagne moment to cap a thrilling season.


Young Sports Personality of the Year: Tom Daley
Runners up: Heather Watson, Jodie Williams

THE CAREER of teenage diver Tom Daley hit incredible heights this year when he became Britain's youngest ever world champion in Rome.

The 15-year-old from Plymouth was the talk of the championships after he produced a brilliant final dive to take gold in the 10m platform final.

Daley, who won Young SPOTY in 2007, has made the shortlist for this and the main award in 2009.

But, while the main award may be beyond him, he fully deserves a second Young SPOTY prize in three years for his even greater feats in the last twelve months.

Not that Daley has been the only teenager turning in world class performances this year.

17-year-old Heather Watson won the US Open girls tournament with a dominant straight-sets win over Russian Yana Buchina.

Watson's win indicates further that the future of British tennis may not be as bleak as some fear after Laura Robson's Wimbledon girls crown in 2008.

Meanwhile, Jodie Williams, 16, became the first girl to win both the 100m and 200m titles at the IAAF World Championships.

Williams' 100m time of 11.39 seconds was the fastest time by a British female at that point in 2009 and she already represents a real medal hope for the London 2012 Olympics.


Overseas Sports Personality of the Year: Usain Bolt
JAMAICAN sprint king Usain Bolt may have won Overseas SPOTY in 2008 but, in typical Bolt style, he was even better in 2009.

When Bolt eased his way to breaking the 100m world record in the 2008 Beijing Olympics final, it was clear that his time of 9.69 seconds could be reduced considerably further.

Bolt waited for the big occasion to come around again before smashing that time and setting 9.58 seconds as the new record at the World Championships in Berlin.

The Jamaican also broke the world record in the 200m for the second year running.

After narrowly beating Michael Johnson's 1996 time of 19.32 by two-hundredths of a second in the Olympics, Bolt reduced the record to 19.19 in Berlin.

Quite simply, there is no man who can live with his pace on this planet.


Coach of the Year: Ross Brawn
ROSS BRAWN is a team director rather than a coach but he merits some recognition for his role in Button's F1 world crown and his glittering career generally.

Extremely clever but always self-deprecating, Brawn was the quiet tactical genius behind seven-time champion Michael Schumacher as technical director at Benetton and Ferrari.

After Honda's demise, Brawn took it upon himself to rebuild the team from scratch, reluctantly putting his own name on it.

But for a natural born winner, just getting the car on the track was never going to be enough and his team built a car with a rear diffuser which blew the field away and led Button to glory.


Team of the Year: Ireland national rugby union
IRELAND's rugby team overcame years of misery and painful near misses to land the Six Nations title, their first win in the competition since 1985.

Better still, they beat all-comers to achieve their first Grand Slam success for 61 years - and they did so in the most dramatic style.

The Irish began with a 30-21 win over France at Croke Park before a routine 38-9 beating of Italy in Rome on the following week.

In the third match, Ireland held on to win 14-13 at Croke Park against England after a late Delon Armitage try set up a grand-stand finish.

And in the fourth match, Ireland completed a 22-15 win over Scotland at Murrayfield.

The final match was in Cardiff against Wales, the 2008 Grand Slam winners. Ireland were a point behind with two minutes left.

The 15-14 deficit would still be enough to give them the title but it meant they would fail to get the Triple Crown or the Grand Slam.

Then, a drop goal by Ronan O'Gara and a penalty miss by Stephen Jones ensured that the Irish would win the lot.

Better still, Ireland drew with Australia and beat world champions South Africa in the autumn internationals to end 2009 unbeaten.

Other teams to enjoy successful sporting years included both the men and women's England cricket teams.

While the men's Ashes success was widely publicised, the women won both the 20-overs and 50-overs World Cups, and retained the Ashes with a draw in a one-off Test.

In domestic cricket, Durham won a second successive county championship while, in football, Manchester United won an 11th Premier League title.

Then, of course, there is Brawn GP who built a champion Formula One car from scratch despite having just weeks to do it in.

It is a sign of the times, however, that many of those workers were made redundant at the start of the season. The recession resulted in widespread cost-cutting in F1.


Lifetime Achievement Award: Seve Ballesteros
SPANISH golfer Seve Ballesteros won five major titles in his playing career - three Open Championships and two Masters titles.

Ballesteros announced himself on the world stage when finishing second in the Open as a 19-year-old in 1976.

He won the Open three years later before two further victories in 1984 and 1988. His two US Masters successes were in 1980 and 1983.

His performance as a team player was also undeniable and he helped Europe to Ryder Cup wins in 1985, 1987, 1989 and 1995 as a player, and 1997 as a non-playing captain.

More recently, last autumn, the golf world was saddened to hear Ballesteros was gravely ill with a cancerous brain tumour.

Ballesteros had the tumour removed and responded well to chemotherapy. He set up the Seve Ballesteros Foundation to help those fighting cancer with money used to research the causes of brain tumours.


Sports Personality of the Year will be shown on BBC One at 1900 GMT.
Note: Two further awards, the Unsung Hero and Helen Rollason Awards, will also be announced during the show.