The 2011 Sports Personality of the Year award is causing a Twitter storm after the shortlist did not include a single woman.
One notable omission was Heywood-based swimmer Keri-anne Payne, who won the 10k open water World Championships in Shanghai this year and was the first person to qualify for the Olympics.
The shortlist was compiled from the votes of sports journalists at more than 30 newspapers and magazines, including the Manchester Evening News.
See how they voted here.
The MEN did vote for Payne - but she narrowly missed out by two votes.
Payne herself tweeted on Monday morning saying: "Again thank you so much for all your tweets! We don't need awards just the support from the Great British public! So keep it coming :)"
BBC presenter Clare Balding added: “@EllyOldroyd: Should I be surprised that Zoo, Nuts and the Star on Sunday didn't nominate any women for SPOTY?”
And presenter Gabby Logan tweeted: "I can't think of anything to say about there being NO women on #SPOTY top 10 list that is positive so I won't say anything. #backward"
The MEN has also attracted criticism for its 10 nominations which were: James Anderson, Dimitar Berbatov, Glen Chapple, Darren Clarke, Rory McIlroy, Keri-Anne Payne, Paul Scholes, Andrew Strauss, Yaya Toure and Patrick Vieira.
Some Twitter critics wrongly suggested that some of the candidates voted for by the MEN are ineligible because they are not British.
However the rules of the contest clearly state that:
People are eligible to win Sports Personality of the Year if:- They are British or all of the following criteria apply:
- They play a significant amount of their sport in the UK
- Their core achievements that year were achieved in the UK, and not with a non-UK based team (in which case they would more likely qualify for the Overseas award)
- They are residents in the UK
The Manchester Evening News sports editor Peter Spencer defended the nominations today. You can see a video of him explaining his choices here:
The actual nominees that will battle it out on December 22 at MediaCity are led by cyclist Mark Cavendish and major winners Darren Clarke and Rory McIlroy.
Cavendish became the first British winner of the green jersey in the Tour de France after five stage victories, and was also crowned road race world champion in Denmark.
Clarke, now 43, won his first major title at the age of 42 with a brilliant performance in The Open Championship at Sandwich, the Ulsterman following in the footsteps of compatriot Rory McIlroy who had secured a record-breaking eight-shot triumph in the US Open the previous month.
Also on the 10-strong shortlist are world number one Luke Donald, world champions Mo Farah (5,000 metres) and Dai Greene (400m hurdles) and England cricketers Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook.
Boxer Amir Khan and tennis star Andy Murray complete the nominees.
What do you think? Have your say.
Comments
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It's a contradiction in terms anyway and always has been.
Whether you like it or not mainstream sports entertainment is heavily biased towards male athletes. Do we have access to the short list from which the ten nominees were chosen?
''causing a storm on twitter''
that mere phrase stopped me reading any further......
The sole criteria should be sporting achievement, regardless of gender. Would all these women be making the same fuss if the list was all female? Somehow, I doubt it. What hypocrites!
Oh dear. Another "own goal" by the BBC. Surely there must be one woman who merits inclusion?
I note that you don't refer to Amir Khan as a "star", yet you do, when referring to Andy Murray. Interesting!
Beth Tweddle should be in there!
It's always been iffy, when Paula Racliffe won in 2002, her win was announced on teletext 10 minutes before they announced it on TV (yes, pre-red button era). In that 10 minutes they were still asking people to ring in to vote for the winner.
Seriously, Berbatov and Viera? Absolutely laughable and you call yourself a serious journalist.
Peter Spencer wants to be seen as a serious journalist then puts Paul Scholes, Dmitir Berbatov and Patrick Viera on there. And his excuse for Paul Scholes? He thought that Pele said he was great though he never actually said it. You couldn't make it up.
Any minority sport with a successful female champion that wants to be nominated for SPOTY should do what horse racing did last year and get organised!
The racing press & supporters pushed Tony McCoy forward like a Messiah and it paid off.
They say that a woman's work is never done. Is that why they aren't on the same pay as men?
Who really cares? A load of well paid sports people at a mutual back slapping competition.
jeez, women will be wanting he vote next........................
in all seriousness I can probably agree with at maybe 8 of the names on the bbc list given what has happend over the last 12 months.
maybe khan and murray are lucky to make the final cut but given tennis is a favourite sport of the bbc its hardly surprising that murray has done so. payne is perhaps the most unlucky given her superb achievement earlier in the year but judging by her tweet I guess she would rather feel she was there on merit than knowing the bbc had fudged the votes just to get a woman on the short-list in the name of political-correctness.
All female athletes should boycott the programme.
and another thing, why has the MEN gone for such lazy journalism?
any idiot could nominate 2 players each from city and united for your shortlist but if you could be bothered doing your job properly and maybe doing a little research you might have jumped on a metrolink and gone and watched a true legend of his sport in Manchester Phoenix player/coach Tony Hand.
This guy is perhaps the best ever british born and trained ice hockey player and last season, although now into his 40's, was our best player in helping Manchester win its first ice hockey title since the glory days of the Storm
To be honest its hard to pick a winner as most of them are winners and each person will prefer there chosen sport.ie i look at footballers and who i pick out as a star and the best player and being a utd fan it wont allways be a utd player as thats biased it could be say david salva a city player,i also think its highly watched sports so maybe a racing driver or a golfer could be there,e.g seve ballesteros for his life time acheivements for his golfing career (i know seve died) but it could a posthumas award presented to his wife.
Its nothing to do with gender ive found its allways a male athlete as there the most sucessful and do the hardest sports,Sing to do with gender so lets get that clear,i remember dame kelly holmes winning it and paula radcliffe so theres a few and of course martina navaratilova(sic).
Jessica Ennis should be on it because she's fit as.
Your editor is an absolute disgrace. How can any serious journalist think that three moderately successful Manchester based foreign footballers warrant inclusion in a national competition for British sporting personalities. Your editor exemplifies all that is wrong with parochial football-dominated sports journalism! He should resign immediately!
with the exception of a grand slamless Andy Murray, i could not have come up with an excuse for omitting any of the others and off the top of my head i cannot think of a female sportstar that has done anything that merits going on. you could hardly give an award for just qualifying for the olympics.. if kerri-anne payne brings home gold im sure she will be DESERVEDLY nominated. im open to suggestions though Tweddle for Murray then.... is that it?
Not just Keri-Anne, but Victoria Pendleton, Helen Jenkins, Chrissie Wellington & Rebecca Adlington are all World Champs, but apparently Andy Murray's consistent mediocrity is a far greater achievement. Little wonder that girls in the UK don't choose to play sport, the press don't give potential role models any coverage! Pathetic!
Women wont be safe of an evening in Salford, that must be it.
Put Beckham on the list--hes become a right old woman.
Spenner your talking a load of tosh......you only think Utd or City.....its not a local competition its National...