THE SHORTLIST for the BBC’s Sports activities Character of the Yr 2024 has been introduced with stars from Athletics, Soccer, and Darts within the operating for the highest prize that has been aired for roughly 80 years. Why simply six?
Again in 1954, the award went to a sure Chris Chataway from Athletics – to 2023 seeing the award go to Mary Earps for Girls’s Soccer – a second consecutive victory for Girls’s Soccer.
The one snooker participant to have ever gained the award for BBC Sports activities Character of the Yr was Steve Davis, who was snooker’s iconic determine of the 80s and claimed six World Championships.
It’s a travesty that gamers from snooker don’t get a glance in because the likes of Kyren Wilson, who has spent greater than twenty years making an attempt to get to the highest declare a World Championship win after shedding to Ronnie O’Sullivan just a few years earlier than in 2020 and profitable it this yr, doesn’t get recognised within the record this yr.
Wilson managed to scoop a World Title this yr beating Welshman Jak Jones within the ultimate 18 – 14.
Are you prepared for some 900 motion on thirtieth December in Epsom? @MrVegas_Casino … the names… @channel5_tv pic.twitter.com/rcdh3bHMYu
— Snooker Legends (@Snookerlegends) December 1, 2024
Snooker nonetheless has moderately massive TV viewing figures globally, perhaps not as massive as what was the 18.5 million that watched Davis and Taylor battle it out for the World Last in 1985. It should by no means be that massive after all in UK, however there may be snooker to look at on TV on ITV 4, BBC, Eurosport, and web streams and Discovery Plus.
Channel 4 have additionally waded into the sport and there may be after all the Snooker Legends 900 Seniors Tour on Channel 5 which this Christmas returns to Epsom in Surrey for the Legends 900 with the likes of Ken Doherty and Jimmy White et al.
Nevertheless, regardless of Ronnie O’Sullivan’s Seven World Championships, and even Hendry’s Seven, and Mark Williams’s three World Titles, the third of which got here in 2018, of which got here 15 years aside, from his second in 2003, snooker barely will get a glance in on the annual ceremony.
Additionally, mentions of the expansion of girls’s snooker also needs to get a point out for the unimaginable run of Reanne Evans who’s the primary commonplace bearer of girls’s snooker with 12 World Girls’s Championships, and, additionally, the brand new Chinese language younger star Bai YuLu, who claimed her first World Girls’s Championship earlier this yr. There’s additionally the very fact she gained three qualifying matches for the UK Championship.
Keely Hodgkinson heads up the shortlist for the BBC Sports activities Character of the Yr award 2024.
Girls’s Soccer has been rising as two years on the trot, ladies’s footballer’s Beth Mead and Mary Earps have secured the highest prize.
Footballer Jude Bellingham, runner Keely Hodgkinson, darts participant Luke Littler, cricketer Joe Root, Para-cyclist Sarah Storey and triathlete Alex Yee are simply a few of the nominees. for this yr
Skateboarder Sky Brown, Para-swimmer William Ellard and darts participant Luke Littler have been shortlisted for the BBC Younger Sports activities Character of the Yr award.
A panel chosen 10 excellent younger folks from a longlist earlier than narrowing that all the way down to a prime three.
Voting will happen through the present on BBC One and the BBC iPlayer on Tuesday, 17 December.
The programme – offered by Gabby Logan, Alex Scott and Clare Balding, and broadcast reside from MediaCityUK in Salford – will have fun 12 months of unimaginable sporting motion.
Let’s hope snooker will get a point out in some kind on the ceremony.