Over the years, 18 track and field athletes have won the prestigious award, twice as many as the next best sport.
This week (December 17) all eyes will be on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. With Olympic 800m gold medalist Keeley Hodgkinson the current favorite to take home the top prize.
The 22-year-old, who became Britain’s third Olympic champion in the 800m after Kelly Holmes (2004) and Anne Packer (1964), is one of six nominees for this year’s award.
Hodgkinson competes in Salford with Alex Yee, Luke Littler, Sarah Storey, Jude Bellingham and Joe Root.
Yi, after becoming Olympic and world champion, will be hoping to become the first triathlete in history, Alistair Brownlee, who was the closest runner-up in 2016, to be named BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Kelly Hodgkinson (Getty)
However, if the odds work out, Hodgkinson’s closest challenger for the award will be teenage darts sensation Luke Leiter, who made his debut World Championship final and backed it up with 10 major trophies.
The last athletics person to win BBC Sports Person of the Year was Mo Farah in 2017, and the last female athletics athlete to claim the award was Holmes in 2004.
The 18 winners in the sport are: Christopher Chattaway (1954), Gordon Peary (1955), Dorothy Hyman (1963), Mary Rand (1964), David Hemery (1968), Mary Peters (1972), Brendan Foster (1974), Steve Ovett ( 1978), Seb Ko (1979), Daly Thompson (1982), Steve Cram (1983), Fatima Whitbread (1987), Liz McColgan (1991), Linford Christie (1993), Jonathan Edwards (1995), Paula Radcliffe (2002) and Holmes (2004).
Christopher Chattway (L) (Getty)
Christopher Chattway (1954)
Christopher Chatway’s 1954 was one for the record books.Not only did he pace Roger Bannister’s first four-minute mile, but Chatway also secured a gold medal over three miles at the then British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver.
His biggest achievement, however, came in the 5,000 m, at the European Championships in Bern, Chattaway finished second to the Soviet Union’s Vladimir Kuts, and two weeks later set a world record for the distance in White City with a time of 13:51.6.
Coutts would have the last laugh, running 13:51.2 just 10 days after Chatway set his mark in London.
Chatway was the first winner of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Gordon Peary (1955)
Gordon Pirie won the award in 1955, beating the legendary Emil Zatopek, three-time Olympic champion in the 5000m, 10,000m and marathon in 1952 from Helsinki, three times that year.
His trio of wins against Zatopek came in both the 5000m and 10,000m, perhaps most famously over the latter distance at White City.
At the time, Zatopek, who was the first man in history to run under 29 minutes for 10,000m, held the world record for more than 25 laps.
Dorothy Hyman (Getty)
Dorothy Hyman (1963)
There were no international championships in the 1963 season, but Dorothy Hyman dominated the domestic championships and almost set the 100m world record.
Her personal best of 11.3 was good enough for the fastest European time and so close to Wilma Rudolph’s world record of 11.2.
Hyman, who secured Olympic silver in the 100m and bronze in the 200m at the 1960 Rome Games, also contributed to the world record in the 4×110-yard relay in 1963, with the British quartet setting a time of 45.2.
Mary Rand (1964)
Mary Rand’s historic achievements at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics meant she deservedly won BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1964.
In the final, the Briton set a long jump world record of 6.76m to beat favorite Tatiana Shchelkanova to win gold in the Japanese capital.
Rand also won silver in the pentathlon and was part of the Great Britain team that won bronze in the 4x100m relay.
David Hemery (Mark Shearman)
David Hemery (1968)
David Hemery won the Olympic 400m hurdles crown at the 1968 Mexico Games in a world record 48.12.
The Brit beat West Germany’s Gerhard Hennigge by almost a second in the biggest Olympic 400m hurdles win since 1924.
Hemery’s world record would stand until 1972, when John Aki-Bua of Uganda ran 47.82 at the Munich Olympics.
Mary Peters (1972)
Mary Peters’ superb all-around performance in the pentathlon secured Great Britain’s only gold medal in athletics at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
In one of the closest margins ever in the combined games, Peters trailed West Germany’s Heide Rosendahl by just 10 points.
Peters set a world record of 4,801 points and took gold by just one-tenth of a second in the 200m, the final event.
Brendan Foster (Mark Shearman)
Brendan Foster (1974)
Brendan Foster’s 1974 season was one for the ages.At the European Championships in Rome he demolished the world-class field in a championship record of 13:17.21 to win by more than six seconds at the Stadio Olimpico.
The Briton also won Commonwealth gold in the 5000m in Auckland, while Kenya’s Ben Jipcho beat Foster; the pair clocked 13:14.4 and 13:14.6 respectively.
Foster’s 3000m world record at his home stadium in Gateshead grabbed global headlines and his time of 7:35.1 was so fast that it stood until 1978 when Kenyan Henry Rono ran 7:32.1.
Steve Ovett (1978)
Steve Ovett had already started to become famous by 1978, but that season took his fame to another level.
At the 1978 European Championships in Prague, Ovet won the gold medal in the 1,500 m and then took home the silver over 800 m.
He clocked a championship record 3:35.59 in his 1500m victory, seeing off Ireland’s Eamonn Coughlan and Great Britain’s Dave Moorcroft.
Before his 1500m race, Ovet looked destined to top the podium in the 800m, but both he and Seb Coe were chased down by East Germany’s Olaf Beyer.
Ovett also set a world best of 8:13.51 over two miles in 1978, losing in a rare loss to Henri Ronot that year.
Seb Coe (Mark Shearman)
Seb Coe (1979)
Seb Coe’s three world records in 41 days in 1979 will never be forgotten.
The first two, 1:42.33 in the 800m and 3:48.95 in the mile, came in Oslo, while the third, 3:32.03 in the 1500m, came in Zurich.
This meant that Coe became the first person to hold these three specific records at the same time.
Coe was named AW Athlete of the Year in 1979 and his achievements that season undoubtedly helped him win Olympic 1500m gold and 800m silver at the 1980 Moscow Games.
He also won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.
Daley Thompson (1982)
Daley Thompson broke the decathlon world record not once, but twice during his 1982 season.
The Moscow Olympic champion beat Goetzis that year with a record 8,730 before West Germany’s Jürgen Hingsen bettered it months later with 8,741.
However, Thompson soon regained his place at the top of the list after scoring 8,774 points at the European Championships in Athens.
Thompson also retained his Commonwealth decathlon title in 1982.
Steve Cram (Getty)
Steve Cram (1983)
Steve Cram became the 1500m world champion at the inaugural championship in Helsinki in 1983.
After claiming European and Commonwealth gold medals a year ago, Cram knew he was in good shape.
However, injuries marred the early part of his 1983 season, making that victory in the Finnish capital all the more special when the Brit clocked 3:41.59 in the indoor race.
Later that summer Creme beat Steve Ovett, then the world 1500m record holder, in an all-time classic mile at Crystal Palace.
Fatima Whitbread (1987)
Fatima Whitbread won gold on the world stage in 1987, defeating East German Petra Felke in a gripping final in Rome.
The Briton set a championship record of 76.64m, while Felke, who held the world record at the time, pushed back the best throw of 71.76m.
Whitbread’s winning mark was not far off his personal best of 77.44m, the previous world record set a year earlier.
He also won the Helen Rollason Award for “outstanding achievement in the face of adversity” in last year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Liz McColgan (Mark Shearman)
Liz McColgan (1991)
Liz McColgan in the historic 1991 had a successful season in both track and road racing.
At the World Championships in Tokyo, McColgan split the field to win gold over the 10,000m, winning by more than 20 seconds.
Just a few months later, she secured victory in the New York City Marathon, her first race over 26.2 miles, with a time of 2:27:13, the fastest marathon debut ever by a female athlete.
McColgan also won an individual bronze medal at that year’s 1991 World Cross Country Championships.
Linford Christie (1993)
In 1993, Linford Christie became the first man in history to win the Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles in the 100m.
His winning time of 9.87 at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart was so fast that it stood as the British record until 2023, when Jarnell Hughes ran 9.83 in New York.
Christie was also part of the British quartet that lost the 4x100m silver to the Americans at that championship.
Such a force in athletics that year, Sally Gunnell came second to Christie in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Jonathan Edwards (Mark Shearman)
Jonathan Edwards (1995)
Jonathan Edwards went undefeated throughout his 1995 season and ended it by winning the world triple jump title in Gothenburg.
On the way to the gold medal, Edwards broke the world record not once, but twice in the Swedish city.
On his first jump, he became the first person to legally clear the 18-meter barrier, a distance of 18.16 m.
It took 20 minutes as he jumped an astonishing 18.29m in his second round, which still stands as a world record.
Paula Radcliffe (2002)
In 2002, Paula Radcliffe’s success came on track, roads and grass.
She was crowned 10,000m champion at the European Championships in Munich, while the Briton also won 5,000m gold at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester.
Earlier that year, Radcliffe won the senior women’s race in Dublin, beating the American pair of Dinah Castor and Colleen De Rijk.
Radcliffe also made her marathon debut in 2002, setting a women’s-only world record of 2:18:55 in London and then 2:17:18 in Chicago.
Kelly Holmes (Mark Shearman)
Kelly Holmes (2004)
Kelly Holmes became only the third woman in history to finish in the Olympic 800m/1500m, following Tatiana Kazankina of the Soviet Union in 1976 and Russia’s Svetlana Masterkova in 1996.
The Brit clocked 1:56.38 in her 800m victory and then ran a British record 3:57.90 in the 1500m.
Holmes also claimed the Diamond League 1500m crown in 2004, winning in Monaco.
Before she was crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year, Mary Rand, Anne Packer, Mary Peters, Tessa Sanderson, Sally Gunnell and Denise Lewis, all former British track and field six-time champions, paid tribute to Holmes.
Mo Farah (2017)
Mo Farah’s world 10,000m title at the London Stadium brought back memories of London Superweek 2012.
Once again, Farah won 25 laps on the world stage, all in front of a partisan home crowd.
It was the Briton’s seventh world gold medal, dating back to 2011 in Daegu.
Farah also secured the 5000m silver at the World Championships in London and became the Diamond League champion in the same year.
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