Since the final ten were named last Monday, Manchester United fans up and down the country have been out in their drones backing Ryan Giggs to be crowned Sports Personality of the Year.
The Welshman is now into 2/1 (from an opening 25/1), and with the nationwide gamble still gathering pace it’s safe to say there’ll be more than a few homes popping the champagne corks early this Christmas should Giggs end up with the coveted BBC gong.
Big money in for Giggs
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Considering the United midfielder has made just 14 appearances and scored three goals since May, it’s actually not that easy to make a case for Giggs to receive the award, especially when you stack his yearly achievements up alongside those of the nine other record-breaking contenders. Hardened football fans will point out that the great man has had a record-breaking year too – equalling the Premier League appearance record as well as maintaining his record of scoring in every season of it. Regardless of whether or not Giggs should be in the list, his rivals’ fans now have the unenviable task of voting enough times to make sure he doesn’t win it.
So who can stop him? Well, Jenson Button must have been halfway to the stage when he claimed his first World Drivers Championship in October. Such was the achievement that his price hit a low of 8/15 during the celebratory hours of his world title win, but that’s now drifting like the proverbial barge as a direct consequence of the Giggs support.
The Brit from Brawn is now evens, an incredible price considering he looked to be home for all money a couple of months back, and the way things are going he may even be bigger than that by the time the show starts at 7pm Sunday night.
As a result of the front two being well clear, there are some extremely attractive prices on offer for the rest of the field. David Haye, hailed for his slaying of ‘Goliath’ Nikolay Valuev is now out to 20/1 (from 7/2) and Ashes winning skipper Andrew Strauss is bigger still, on offer at 25/1 having touched 6/1 in August. You can probably put a line through the likes of Beth Tweddle, Tom Daley, Andy Murray and Phillips Idowu, most of whom are 100/1+, but there may still be a couple of others capable of upsetting the apple cart.
Heptathlete Jessica Ennis is solid at 11/2 third-favourite behind Giggs and Button, and there’s been some interesting money floating around for Mark Cavendish of late. The cycling-sprinter is 28/1 from 80/1 to come with a strong finish and pip the others at the post.
For all intensive purposes though, it now looks like a straight fight between Button and Giggs, two men who are very different ends of the spectrum when it comes to sporting careers. A vote for Button would be in honour of his fantastic rags-to-riches fairytale of an F1 season, where as giving Giggsy the nod no doubt reflects the achievements of a footballer who’s spent 19 seasons playing at the top level.
Lewis Hamilton failed to secure the award last year despite becoming F1 champ, and because of that we’re not too keen on Button’s chances.
That leaves Giggs and at 2/1 follow the money.
