Lewis Hamilton Pipped to the Post by Hoy

British Sport has been full of surprises this year, with our outstanding medal winners in the Beijing Olympics to our much loved 23 year old racing dynamo Lewis Hamilton winner of the 2008 FIA Formula 1 World Championship. This surprising year has now culminated in the crowning of Olympic triple Gold medallist Chris Hoy as the BBC Sport Personality of the Year 2008, knocking Hamilton surprisingly into second place. Lewis Hamilton was pragmatic on not achieving the publics top vote of BBC Sport Personality of the Year 2008 commenting that he wasn’t disappointed on Hoy’s win and added "I was up against some amazing athletes who have achieved so much,". The bookies had favoured Olympic Gold swimming medal winner Rebecca Adlington to win first place in the category of BBC Sport Personality of the Year 2008 but she eventually went on to receive only a third place vote.

The Olympic medal winners were all popular with the public, who clearly felt that the Team GB achievements needed acknowledging with 7 Olympic gold medal winners included in the final ten contenders for recognition in these awards. The well deserved win by Chris Hoy from Edinburgh was greeted by an impromptu standing ovation by the crowd as he accepted the award from Sir Steve Redgrave. Chris Hoy was overwhelmed by the vote and took the time to thank the 283,630 members of the public who had taken the trouble to vote for him in his acceptance speech, adding “British sport has enjoyed its best year, certainly in my lifetime,” he said. “After the year I’ve had and the whole team has had, to be crowned Sports Personality of the Year, it just means so much. This is the big one and this is just unbelievable.”

Chris Hoy was joined in recognition by other award winning recipients including Usain Bolt who was awarded ‘Overseas Personality’, British Cycling achieved ‘Team of the Year’, ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ went to Sir Bobby Charlton, ‘BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year’ went to Paralympic double gold medal winner, swimmer Eleanor Simmonds. ‘The Helen Rollason Award’ was given to former England Rugby Union International star Alastair Hignell with the special ‘Unsung Hero’ prize given to Ben Geyser the founder of the Dorchester Amateur Boxing Club.