Congratulations to Jo Pavey For Winning Sports Personality Of The Year By Default.
I’ve absolutely no idea who has the final say when it comes to determining what is considered a sport in the United Kingdom but the results from last night don’t make any sense to me.
Here are the top 3 finishers in the competition
1) Lewis Hamilton – Formula 1 (the cars)
2) Rory McIlroy – Golf (gardening)
3) Jo Pavey – Athletics
Let’s start with Lewis Hamilton and Formula 1. Cars largely drive themselves – so it’s not a sport. It’d be different if he was generating all the power for the vehicle by pedalling very quickly, but he isn’t.
Lewis Hamilton may be of athletic build but that doesn’t necessarily make him an athlete. I’ve seen plenty of well toned bar workers in Wetherspoon, but pulling pints isn’t a sport regardless of how many you can pour in an hour.
How fast do you have to drive a car for it to be considered a sport? 100mph? 150mph? 200mph? If it’s not speed that determines whether a certain activity is a sport but perceived levels of difficulty controlling your vehicle then shouldn’t all motorists be eligible for nomination?
Consider a taxi driver driving 3 women in labour inside a 1991 Lada Samara to hospital in extremely icy conditions with a rabid wolf in the back shitting all over the upholstery. If he gets everyone to the delivery rooms on time, rabies-free, then shouldn’t he win a nomination too?
Moving further down the results it’s clear to me that golf isn’t a sport. It’s gardening for rich people. Rory McIlroy seems like a nice person but then so does Alan Titchmarch and he’d be my go-to-man for Sports Personality Of The Year in 2015 if we’re gonna consider all forms of gardening as sport.
Golf may require a lot of skill but it’s ultimately pointless. It’s only popular because there are a lot of very bored people out there. Hitting a banana with a toothbrush into a tiddlywinks cup requires just as much skill but it rightly isn’t considered a sport as it’s fucking ludicrous. It would be a sport if 100 million dickheads did it weekly. That’s the only reason golf is considered a sport.
That leaves Jo Pavey the de-facto winner of the award.
Congratulations Jo. You had my vote.
hilariously terrible article, full of straw man arguments and lack of knowledge.
I am by no means an avid F1 fan but even I know they require a huge level of fitness. This may help you understand a little bit http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/6980337.stm
So you can see how it’s not the speed of the car or the ‘perceived levels of difficulty’ that make F1 a sport. It’s a sport because it’s a competitive athletic activity.
Bob,
The cars isn’t a sport.
Thanks,
Matt
F1 is a sport, however only a Mercedes driver could win the title and Rosberg had shown himself to be an average driver at best over the years. Hamilton although good is by no means the best driver on the grid and not even in the top 3 IMO
The biggest travesty of SPOTY is that the best, bravest athlete, who won the toughest league in the world whilst playing with a fractured cheekbone and eye socket which occurred in the first ten seconds of the match, and still was the first Englishman ever to win the MOM in said final, who was voted international player of the year, didn’t even get nominated.
Go on You Tube, type in “Slammin Sam” and then after watching what this guy went through to become the best player either code if tugby has ever seen, tell me he isn’t the biggest personality in sport
He’s that big a personality, I’ve no clue who you’re on about..?
Surely a pre-requisite to be nominated as SPOTY is to a) be at the top of your game (a tick in the box for all who were nominated, and your fella I’m sure); and, b) For people outside the sport to know who you are so you can get votes.
The article was vering on the pointless anyway, not even remotely factual, just someone having a giggle by way of a rant. No point in you getting your knickers in a twist either.
I wanted Jo Pavey to win too, knew she’d never win because of the nature of the competition, and am no more vexed than I was before the result now that she ‘only made the podium’.
The key word is the ‘P’ – personality. It is not sportsman or sportswoman of the year, it is sports personality of the year. It’s a popularity contest. And sadly there are more people who watch F1 than watch athletics.
Then again, I would argue that Hamilton is a humourless robot devoid of personality. So that means McIlroy wins.
It is a sport, I have no doubt about that, and to deal with the heat and G-forces is incredible. That said… The driving bit, not so much.
My personal issue – is Hamilton has no personality at all, hint’s at racism when things don’t go his way and is paid possibly too much (not that I’d complain about a thing if I earned that dosh)
Other than that, while I don’t participate in any sport – I would prefer the award to go to someone who has to physically work out all day every day and know the true pain of exhaustion 7 days a week
and would probably be Jo 🙂
None of them are sports, they are games and activities… Hunting, fishing and horse related activities are Sports.
Disappointed that none of our international egg throwers were nominated
The definition of the word sport is:- an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. By that definition, F1 and golf are both sports. Added to that, the fact that cars don’t drive themselves. You do, using skill. The F1 guys are supremely fit due to the stresses put on their bodies during each and every race. The skill required to drive a car at 200mph and around corners is the reason why you can’t do it. Same with golf. Skill, strength etc are al required to be the best in what they do. All three are valid as sports, all require skill and strength to be the best, whereas, it is clear that there is no skill required to write badly, and still be published.