They’ve wowed us with their prowess on pitch, track and field – and this week it’s time to find out which sporting star takes the nation’s top award in the annual festive prize-giving ceremony, Sports Personality Of The Year.
Clare Balding, Gary Lineker and Gabby Logan will again host the show, which this year comes from Aberdeen.
‘It feels different when we are in a new place,’ reckons Gabby.
‘Belfast (in 2015) was the longest show, and that was partly due to the audience going crazy all the time.
'I think we over-ran by nine minutes!
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And I remember Glasgow being quite a noisy crowd, so I imagine we will have a similar kind of atmosphere at this one.’
Vying for the top prize are athletes Dina Asher-Smith and Katarina Johnson-Thompson, racing driver Lewis Hamilton, footballer Raheem Sterling, rugby captain Alun Wyn Jones and cricketer Ben Stokes.
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After thrilling fans in the summer’s World Cup and Test series, Stokes is favourite.
If he wins, he’ll be the first cricketer honoured since Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff in 2005.
‘Ben Stokes has had an amazing year, but he plays in a team sport, so you don’t know whether that will affect voting,’ ponders Gabby.
‘But he did give us one of the great moments of the year.’
Gabby reckons anyone could win it, however, and everything can change on the night.
‘You get a sense of the room and when the crowd starts to get behind somebody.
'Clare Balding and I have a little running joke about who can get the most people into the Top Three,’ laughs the presenter, whose recent TV credits include Back Of The Net, alongside Peter Crouch and John Bishop.
‘People come up to me in the week after and say, “So and so should have won!” and I say, “Did you vote?” And they say, “No”.
'It’s like when I was on Strictly – the day after I got knocked out, people said, “Oh my God! I can’t believe you got knocked out!”
'I said, “Did you vote? No? That’s how people get knocked out!”’
While Gabby’s on hosting duty at the eagerly awaited ceremony, SPOTY is also a family night out for her as her husband, ex-rugby star Kenny Logan, will be there with the couple’s twins, Lois and Reuben, 14.
‘Last year they were begging to come,’ says Gabby.
‘Afterwards I get a bit more respect… for about a day!’
* Sports Personality of the Year 2019, Sunday, 7pm, BBC One
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