World of Chig   

10.12.06
You Don’t Have To Be Royal To Win This…But It Helps

Congratulations to Zara Phillips for winning the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award this evening, at the NEC, here in Birmingham. (I would have gone, but the tickets sold out in an hour, for this first, bigger, public event, after 50 years of it being held in a TV studio.) Zara's Mum won the same award 35 years ago. It’s been a funny year for the Sports Personality award, as there hasn’t been an obvious winner, due in no small part to the coincidental low points which the England football, rugby and cricket teams are all suffering this year. (I am aware that there are other countries in the UK, but you get my point.)

Darren Clarke, the golfer, came second, which should please him as he said he didn’t want to win it on a wave of sympathy after his wife died just before he and a few others won the Ryder Cup. Our champion gymnast Beth Tweddle came third. Overall, good results, I think, showing that the public does sometimes know how to vote for achievement over celebrity. Zara Phillips is the current three day eventing world champion. Princess Anne was only the European champion in the same sport when she won the award, so daughter Zara has gone one better, which may compensate slightly for her Mum forbidding her from ever being made a princess.


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