For a man who has won two Olympic gold medals, three world titles and been hailed as one of the greatest distance runners of all time, Mo Farah is entitled to feel a little hard done by when it comes to the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
While few could argue with Sir Bradley Wiggins’s coronation last year after his Tour de France and Olympic double, more controversial was the fact that Farah’s epic 5,000 and 10,000 metres victories in the Olympic Stadium did not even merit a top-three place in the eyes of the British public.
He finished fourth overall, with just eight per cent of the total vote. Not even double figures for one of the greatest achievements in Britain’s sporting history and a feat that put him on a pedestal alongside such track greats as Emil Zatopek, Lasse Viren and Kenenisa Bekele.
Andy Murray, meanwhile, received a much healthier 14 per cent of the vote for his Olympic US-Open double to take third place overall, while Jessica Ennis-Hill finished runner-up with 23 per cent of the votes cast for her one Olympic gold medal – nearly three times more votes than Farah.
One explanation for the apparent injustice is that the track and field vote was split between Farah and Ennis-Hill, and the poster girl of London 2012 was never going to lose out in a straight popularity contest.
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