Sports Personality of the Year

A focus on sporting achievement

2025

Steve Cram 1983

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In 1983, athlete Steve Cram was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year, ahead of figure skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean and decathlete Daley Thompson. Capitalising on the absence of his two main middle-distance rivals, compatriots Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, through injury, Cram had won gold medals in the 1,500 metres at both the European Athletics Championships in Athens and the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane in 1982.

However, in 1983, his career took another step forward when, on August 14, he won the gold medal in the 1,500 metres at the inaugural World Athletics Championships in Helsinki. Having beaten Ovett in his semi-final, in a championship record time of 3:35.77, the ‘Jarrow Arrow’, as Cram was affectionately known, faced 11 rivals in the final, including Ovett and Said Aouita of Morocco, the fastest man in the world that season.

Aouita struck for home approaching the bell but, using his long stride to good effect, Cram tackled the leader early, and took the race by the scruff of the neck inside the final 200 metres. Down the home straight he never seriously looked like being caught and although American record holder Steve Smith closed, passing the weakening Aouita, Cram was always holding him and came home in a relatively slow 3:41.59 to win the gold medal. Ovett, for his part, came from an unpromising position to finish fourth, in 3:42.34.

Later that year, Cram met Ovett again, in the popular Coca-Cola meeting at Crystal Palace. He confirmed the Helsinki form, but only just, winning, by his own admission, “by little more than the thickness of a vest”. Indeed, a clip of that epic race was shown during the SPOTY awards ceremony, with commentary by David Coleman, who also hosted the show. At the conclusion of the race, Coleman said, fittingly, “Cram so modest in victory, Ovett so generous in defeat; a duel to remember, from which both emerged with honour.”

Cram went on to win the silver medal in the 1,500 metres at the 1984 Summer Olympics, behind Coe, and between July 16 and August 4, 1985, set world records for 1,500 metres, a mile and 2,000 metres. He eventually retired from competitive athletics in 1994.

Sir Nick Faldo 1989

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Knighted for services to golf in the 2009 Birthday Honours, Sir Nick Faldo made his final competitive appearance at The Open Championship at St. Andrews, Scotland in 2015, by which time he has amassed 41 professional wins, including six major championships. Faldo won The Open three times, at Muirfield in 1987, at St. Andrews in 1990 and at Muirfield again in 1992, and the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia three times, in 1989, 1990 and 1996.

Following his first Masters victory, in 1989, Hertforshire-born Faldo was also voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year, ahead of boxer Frank Bruno and snooker player Steve Davis. The sporting year was, of course, overshadowed by the Hillsborough disaster – the deadliest in British sporting history, utimately resulting in 97 fatalities – at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield on April 15, less than a week after the climax of the Masters Tournament. All of the victims were fans of Liverpool Football Club, deemed to have been “unlawfully killed” and, fittingly, the SPOTY trophy was presented by Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard, who was deeply involved in helping Liverpool heal from the tragedy.

After collecting the trophy, Faldo said, “Can I obviously thank everybody’s who voted for me, everybody’s who’s supported me this year, the fans, obviously, who’ve supported golf so much, recently, in the last few years…”

At Augusta, Faldo had trailed by five strokes heading into the final round, but made eight birdies and just one bogey to post 65 and a 72-hole total of 283 (-5), which gave him the clubhouse lead. American Scott Hoch, who had trailed the third-round leader, compatriot Ben Crenshaw, by a single stroke at the start of the day, emerged as the principal challenger and actually had a putt to win the tournament, albeit from 25 feet, on the final regulation hole. He missed, and missed again, from four feet, on the first playoff hole, the tenth, only for Faldo to hole his birdie putt from 25 feet to win his first Masters title and the second major championship of his career.

Robin Cousins 1980

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In 1980, figure skater Robin Cousins was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY), beating athletes Sebastian Coe and Daley Thompson in the public vote, after winning the men’s singles at the European Figure Skating Championships on Gothenburg, Sweden in January and a gold medal in the same event at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York in February. Having accepted the SPOTY trophy from John Arlott, Cousins, clearly emotional, said, “I was just beginning to get over everything that happened in Lake Placid and what a thrill it is for me to come back and receive this trophy.”

Cousins had previously won a bronze medal at the World Figure Skating Championships in Ottawa, Canada in 1978 and silver medal in Vienna, Austria in 1979. He would go on to win another silver medal in Dortmund, West Germany in March 1980, by which point he was already Olympic champion.

Under the auspices of renowned Italian coach Carlos Fassi – whose other students included 1976 European, World and Olympic Champion John Curry – Cousins was considered one of the best, if not the best, free skaters in the world. As such he was among the favourites for the gold medal in Lake Placid, with his principal opposition coming from the last two World Champions, Vladimir Kovalyov of the Soviet Union and Charles Tickner of the United States, and Jan Hoffman of East Germany, who was World Champion in 1974 and would be again in 1980.

After placing only fifth in the compulsory figures, Kovalyov was withdrawn from the competition, supposedly due to illness, leaving Cousins and Hoffman as main rivals for the gold medal. Hoffman led after the compulsory figures and the short programme but, skating first of the six competitors in the free skating, Cousins received 5.9 from eight of the nine judges for artistic impression. He did not watch any of his rivals, opting instead to watch Linda Fratianne in the practice arena, but had done enough to win the gold medal, ahead of Hoffman and Tickner. Cousins subsequently confessed, “When I went for my medal I tripped because I didn’t feel my feet.”

Ian Botham 1981

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Former cricketer Ian Botham received a knighthood for his services to charity and cricket in the 2007 Birthday Honours and a life peerage in 2020, becoming Baron Botham, of Ravensworth in the County of North Yorkshire. However, back in his playing days, in 1981, he was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year after an extraordinary summer of Test cricket that became known, quite rightly, as ‘Botham’s Ashes’.

Botham began the summer as England captain but, after losing the First Test at Trent Bridge by four wickets and bagging a pair in the drawn Second Test at Lord’s – which took his record to 12 winless matches in charge – he resigned the captaincy and was replaced by the previous incumbent, Mike Brearley, for the Third Test at Headingley. What followed has become the stuff of legend.

In the first innings, Australia made 401/9 declared and, having made just 174 all out in reply, England followed on and were precariously poised at 135-7 in the second innings. However, Botham went on to make 149 not out, including stands of 117 with Graham Dilley (56) and 67 with Chris Old (29), batting at number nine and number 10, respectively, to give England a lead of 129. In the second innings, Bob Willis took a mesmerising 8-43, reducing Australia to 111 all out and giving England an unlikely victory by 18 runs.

In the Fourth Test at Edgbaston, Australia were set a target of 151 in their second innings, but Botham took 5/14, including 5/1 in 28 balls, to dismiss the tourists for just 121. In the Fifth Test at Old Trafford, Botham was out for a duck in the first innings, but made 118 from 102 balls in the second, helping England to a 103-run win and an unassailable 3-1 lead in the series. Botham took 10 wickets in the drawn Sixth Test at the Oval and was named Player of the Series, with 399 runs and 34 wickets to his name.

Botham did not attend the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award ceremony, having alreay departed for a six-Test tour of India, but was presented with a replica trophy by former England captain Mike Brearley. Snooker player Steve Davis finished second and athlete Sebastian Coe third in the public vote.