British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

Var · Challenger level

European Athletics Champs - Birmingham

paulisi · Tennis legend

It shows how poor other sports are, that Amy Hunt is a clear favourite. She is miles of the North American and Caribbean athletes

Crowds picked over the last few days, but there were still issues. Train issues one night and accreditation issues on the saturday evening which created a big security issue and huge delays home for athletes and officials.

I still think London will get the worlds and do a much better job with pricing and access and with decent marketing will sell out every evening session and quite a few morning sessions.

GAMEOVER · Futures qualifying

When Emma won the SPTY in 2021 this was due to her US Open win when she beat none of the top players. Nobody complained about it at the time so what is the problem with Amy Hunt this year? She said she was going to win 4 gold medals at the Europeans which she did with the help of her team mates. One of her team mates had the appropriate name Success.

paulisi · Tennis legend

European sprinting is very weak at the moment, both mens and womens.
Amy is not even in the top 10 sprinters in the world and she came across as arrogant.

seagull · Tennis legend

Sooner our athletes come across as arrogant (Which I dont agree she did), and back it up with winning, rather that be grateful they scraped into a final.

JonH · Tennis legend

GAMEOVER wrote:
When Emma won the SPTY in 2021 this was due to her US Open win when she beat none of the top players. Nobody complained about it at the time so what is the problem with Amy Hunt this year? She said she was going to win 4 gold medals at the Europeans which she did with the help of her team mates. One of her team mates had the appropriate name Success.

SPOTY is a tough one - the P stands for as much as the S; ideally, the player has world leading performance and a strong personality. Amy seems to ticking the P button (despite Paulisi not liking her growing confidence!) but not sure she is on the S top level yet, again as shown in the world rankings.

Each year is different - Emma's title wasnt about who she beat it was the sheer fact she did it, winning one of the biggest two events in our sport (probably) and ticked the P box at the same time.

Often it is about bandwagon, and maybe Amy will have that in her favour. However, there are 4 months of the year left, and a lot can happen in that time and other players could equally achieve a lot and with personality.

Golf has had its season, though, so probably wont see Rory get a massive number of votes now. Tennis candidates will depend on the USO now, maybe Arthur will back up Wimbledon and shine. Football's year was the World Cup and we probably wont see a winner from there although I would expect Bellingham would be on the shortlist. Other sports like Cricket won't have anyone this year. F1 might if George Russell comes back or Lewis Hamilton comes through, but suspect that won't happen.

Suspect any challenge to Amy will come from someone in there getting a massive title or big performance before year end but don't seem to be many chances left for that to happen.

indiana · Tennis legend

paulisi wrote:
European sprinting is very weak at the moment, both mens and womens.
Amy is not even in the top 10 sprinters in the world and she came across as arrogant.

I never got that Amy was particularly different in these championships, especially with what she was achieving, from what I've observed before. Purely from TV observing her and her intervews, she has always come across to me as a bit of a diva, which may be a turn-off to some. I thought that her BBC TV interview after her 4th gold in the mixed relay for her was actually very restained and complimentary to her team mates.

I think long past has the P part ( in the commonly assumed sense ) been particularly important, though helpful, and indeed the BBC has tried to clear this up in the past as more meaning "personality" in the big name / big player sense eg. Keir Starmer - a political personality. Nor for me is a particular world position vital, though it helps. I look on SPOTY a bit like PoM here, just no rules but simply who has been my UK sportsperson of the year in generally who has most impressed / impacted on me in the year with their particular achievement(s). So for instance Emma was always getting my SPOTY ( and PoS here ) 2021 votes, whoever she had beaten and her WR even after her US Open triumph.

indiana · Tennis legend

Overall in SPOTY, the only real dangers I see are a Formula 1 comeback in the second half of the year from Russell, Hamilton or Norris or someone doing something fairly mad in the US Open singles (.Arthur has a start ).

F1 does attract votes and it would need to be quite a comeback to win the championship.

I too expect Bellingham will be on the shortlist, a quite probable winner if he had kept performing and England had gone and won the World Cup. Or Captain Kane if he had whipped in a few more goals.

A probable Fury vs Joshua fight is probably.going to ne a few years too late ( and not for a world title ) to be particularly impactful.

-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 18th of August 2026 12:02:00 PM

christ · Challenger qualifying

SPOTY is not particularly about being good at a sport - it isn't called "Best Sportsperson of the Year".

As the public now have an input (have they always?), it is about the sport-related person that made the most impact in the public consciousness in the year: it has as much to do with news (and social media) coverage as results. Eddie the Eagle would be a shoo-in nowadays if he were still competing.

Recency bias is also a thing: if the vote were this week I think that Ms Hunt would be a definite front runner, but non-Olympic athletics tends to fade in the public memory quite quickly, so to maintain public interest she will have to continue to do things that draw the public eye between now and the vote ("I'm a Celebrity Get me Out of Here", anyone?).