Who will win BBC Sports Personality of the Year award 2024?

Criteria include a person's sporting achievements in the past year, plus their impact across the nation – but, contrary to popular belief, the award has nothing to do with an individual's personality.

RadioTimes.com brings you our list of favourites to be crowned BBC SPOTY winner in 2024.

Who will win BBC Sports Personality of the Year award 2024?

Keely Hodgkinson

In an Olympic year, it would be fitting for an Olympic hero to secure the BBC SPOTY award. This year's Team GB poster girl, Keely Hodgkinson, is the frontrunner for the award following her terrific golden display in Paris this summer.

At the age of 19, Hodgkinson announced her arrival on the 800m world scene at the Tokyo Olympics with a silver-medal performance out of the blue. In between the Games, she scooped two World Championship silvers and signalled her intent ahead of Paris with a personal best and new British 800m record at a Diamond League meeting in London in July. Her time of 1:54.61 made her the sixth fastest woman over this distance in history.

Hodgkinson arrived in Paris as the favourite, her face splashed across BBC coverage, adverts and everywhere an athlete's face could be plastered. Hype and expectation rose in tandem, but could she handle the pressure? What do you think?

Now 22, Hodgkinson cruised through her heat, calmly qualified for the showpiece race, and truly lit up the stadium in the final. She finished almost half a second quicker than Tsige Duguma, who ran a personal best, and 2023 world champion Mary Moraa to cement her place as the great British success story of the Games.

Lando Norris

This contender really is a boom or bust selection. Milliseconds could determine whether Lando Norris wins – or falls short of – the Formula 1 Drivers' Championship title this year. And it feels like the BBC Sport's Personality of the Year award also rests on his McLaren.

Formula 1 giants Stirling Moss, Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Lewis Hamilton have claimed eight BBC SPOTY awards between them over the decades, with Hamilton finishing inside the top three on six occasions, more than any other sportsperson. There is clear appetite for F1 champions to claim the top gong, but the status of 'champion' is critical.

Norris remains 52 points behind Max Verstappen in the standings with six races to go, at the time of writing. Crucially, Norris's form has improved throughout the campaign, in tandem with a collapse in momentum from Verstappen. The flying Dutchman won seven of the opening 10 races this season, but has failed to win any of the eight races since then.

McLaren ace Norris is gaining, and is expected to continue to close the gap, but can he perform an almighty overtake in the final straight? If Norris does seal the title, recency bias, the sheer popularity of the sport and, particularly, the driver himself will surely all combine to install him as BBC SPOTY winner in 2024.

Luke Littler

Don't let the kebab shop antics fool you, Luke Littler is a serious – and seriously impressive – sports star. Nobody expected it, nobody saw it coming: when Littler stepped onto the stage for the first time at Ally Pally, the nation was unaware of the craze that would follow.

The then 16-year-old qualified for the PDC World Darts Championship 2024 after finishing runner-up on the PDC Development Tour. He recorded three consecutive victories, each encouraging more and more raised eyebrows across the land, before a statement 4-1 victory over former world champion Raymond van Barneveld sparked full-blown Littler fever.

Littler – donning his to-be-iconic purple shirt – took out Brendan Dolan in the quarter-finals before toppling fellow fairytale writer Rob Cross to reach the final. Luke Humphries didn't read the room and claimed the title in a nail-biting finale, but Littler jumped 133 places up the world rankings as his reward for finishing as runner-up.

You may think that's where Littler's journey fizzled out, but you'd be mistaken. He was admitted to the Premier League Darts season for 2024 and won the competition on his maiden voyage. He also won the World Series of Darts, Poland Darts Masters and hit a nine-darter against Michael van Gerwen to claim the Bahrain Darts Masters title.

The best of the rest...

Sarah Storey enjoyed great success in the Paralympic Games and World Championships this year, with gold medals in both the road race and time trial in each of the major events.

England footballers Cole Palmer, Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and Harry Kane would've each fancied their chances this year due to tremendous club successes and a major international tournament to look forward to. However, England's limp defeat to Spain in the Euro 2024 final, and ultimately dreary team performances on the way there, ended each of their respective hopes.

Ben Ainslie may see a little burst up the charts following his sailing team's qualification for the America's Cup – the first British team to progress to the event in 60 years.

2011 BBC SPOTY champion Mark Cavendish set a new record for most Tour de France individual stage wins with No. 35 this year during his last appearance in the prestigious race, though he is unlikely to force himself onto the shortlist.

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