Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) has been voted Sportsman of the Year by Britain’s sports journalists, the Sports Journalists’ Association (SJA) reports. The Tour de France winner managed to fight off the challenge from numerous multiple Olympic champions in an unprecedentedly successful year for British sport; Mo Farah, who won both the 10,000 and 5,000 metres at London 2012, was the runner up; Olympic tennis champion and US Open winner Andy Murray was third.
Like Farah and Murray, Wiggins took a gold medal in his home Olympics, but his total dominance of stage races in the first half of the season - where he became the first rider to win Paris-Nice, the Tour de Romandie, and the Critérium du Dauphiné, on the way to becoming the first British rider to win the Tour de France - was what won it for the Belgian-born Londoner.
Wiggins becomes the fifth cyclist to win the prestigious award since its inception in 1949, with Reg Harris taking the prize in 1950 and Tommy Simpson in 1965. In recent years Wiggins himself finished third in 2004, Chris Hoy won in 2008, while Mark Cavendish took the prize in 2011. On all those occasions Simpson, Hoy and Cavendish have gone on to take the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, making Wiggins an even firmer favourite than before.
Unsurprisingly, since she was the poster girl for London 2012, heptathlete Jessica Ennis was named Sportswoman of the year, ahead of double sculls gold medallist Katherine Grainger. World and Olympic Omnium and Team Pursuit champion Laura Trott was third.
Having entirely dominated the women’s C4-5 cycling events in London - taking gold in the Individual Pursuit, 500 metres, time trial and road race - which took her career total to 12 Olympic golds across swimming and cycling, Sarah Storey was voted Paralympic Sportswoman of the Year.