Sports Personality latest

By BBC Sport's Honest Frank
Our resident betting expert

A shortlist of 10 contenders for the 2007 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award will be announced on Friday.

The names will revealed on the One Show on BBC One from 1900 GMT, with further information on the BBC Sport website.

606: DEBATE Hamilton and Hatton are the bookies' favourites - can anyone beat them? BBC Sport's Honest Frank

Bookmakers rate Formula One ace Lewis Hamilton the favourite to lift the famous trophy on 9 December.

Boxers Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe, athlete Paula Radcliffe and golfer Justin Rose are also rated candidates by bookies.

Here, we look at the current Sports Personality front-runners, but remember these are just the bookies' contenders at this stage.

A public phone vote on the night will decide the winner from the 10 contenders announced on Friday.

Editors' Blog: How the shortlist is reached

2007 dark horses

AWARD FAVOURITES

(Contender, average odds, age, nationality, sport)

LEWIS HAMILTON 1-3 (22, English, Formula One)
Hamilton has been in pole position for the trophy after a record-breaking rookie season.

He had never appeared in a Formula One race nine months ago, yet came within a point of clinching the world title.

Composed and charming, he calmly brushed aside a team spying row and difficulties with colleague Fernando Alonso.

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RICKY HATTON 4-1 (29, English, Boxing)
Hatton is going to be big news on 9 December, whether he wins the Sports Personality award or not.

His super fight against Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas takes place in the early hours of that Sunday morning.

Mayweather gained a new audience with his antics in the American version of Strictly Come Dancing, but there's no pussyfooting around in the ring - many fight fans regard him as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world.

"I'd like to think that, if I beat Mayweather and prove myself the best in boxing, that I'd win Sports Personality of the Year, but I haven't built up my hopes," said Hitman Hatton.

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JOE CALZAGHE 5-1 (35, Welsh, Boxing)
A decade at the top was capped with Calzaghe's defeat of WBA and WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler in front of 50,000 Welsh fans at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

Calzaghe's win was initially shown live in the early hours of 3 November on satellite channel Setanta, where an estimated 300,000 viewers tuned in.

And his triumph reached a wider audience, when a peak audience of 1.8m saw a replay of the bout on BBC One.

Calzaghe has beaten the pain barrier while claiming 44 wins from 44 bouts. The fighter has brittle bones in his left hand, which he has broken three times during his career.

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PAULA RADCLIFFE 16-1 (35, English, Athletics)
She gave birth to her daughter Isla after a marathon labour in January, and 10 months later was beating the world's top marathon runners.

Radcliffe kept repeating the phrase "I love you Isla" to maintain her rhythm in the closing stages of her New York Marathon victory.

The 2002 Sports Personality winner had not competed in any 26-mile event since winning the world title in Helsinki more than two years earlier.

But she dug deep to defeat Gete Wami, seeing off the Ethiopian in a sprint finish, despite being behind in the last mile.

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JUSTIN ROSE 33-1 (27, English, Golf)
An impressive year has seen Rose rise to a ranking of seventh in the world.

He overcame a stomach bug to take the season-ending Volvo Masters in Spain and clinch the European PGA Order of Merit crown.

The drama at Valderrama started on the tournament's first day when he hit a hole-in-one just hours after being sick.

Rose is the youngest golfer since Ronan Rafferty (25) to win the European title, earning more than £2m in prize money to edge out rivals including Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington.

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FRANKIE DETTORI 33-1 (36, Italian, Horse racing)
Born in Milan, Arsenal fan Frankie is an honorary Brit and a firm favourite with racing enthusiasts and casual punters alike.

He qualifies for this award by living and working in Britain, and in 1996 finished third in the Sports Personality vote after riding all seven winners on the card at Ascot - marking the feat with his trademark leaping dismount.

This year the jockey finally completed his set of British Classics by winning the Derby, at the 15th attempt, on Authorized.

The following day he won the French version on Lawman to claim a notable double, leading one newspaper to call for him to be knighted.

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JONNY WILKINSON 40-1 (28, English, rugby union)
The Comeback Kid entered the award betting as England's remarkable resurgence gathered pace in the Rugby World Cup.

He helped the side pull back from the prospect of early elimination to reaching the final, where South Africa proved too strong.

The 2003 Sports Personality winner may not have been quite the kicking king who helped England become champions four years ago.

But his return marked the end of a bruising personal journey. The Six Nations appearance against Scotland in February was his first game in an England shirt for 1,169 days.

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TIM HENMAN 50-1 (33, English, Tennis)
He may have been a perennial nearly man when it came to winning Wimbledon, but 'Tiger Tim' is still a huge favourite with British tennis fans.

Henman finally decided to hang up his racket in September, bowing out at the All England Club as he sealed promotion for Great Britain in the Davis Cup with his last stroke as a professional player.

The former British number one reached six Grand Slam semi-finals during his career, and was once ranked fourth in the world. He has twice been runner-up for the Sports Personality award.

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CHRISTINE OHURUOGU 50-1 (23, English, Athletics)
On 11 August, Ohuruogu competed for the first time in more than a year. In the space of a few days, she shaved half a second off her personal best and led a world championship 1-2 for Britain with Nicola Sanders in the 400m.

Her winning final time of 49.61 seconds was the third fastest time ever by a British woman behind Kathy Cook and Katherine Merry.

Ohuruogu was competing in Osaka after serving a year's suspension for missing three out-of-competition drugs tests. A lifetime Olympics ban by the British Olympic Association is currently under review.

She has already been named Great Britain's Athlete of the Year by athletics writers.

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JAMES MCFADDEN 80-1 (24, Scottish, Football)
The Scotland striker was backed by his countrymen to gatecrash the Personality party after scoring the spectacular goal that sunk the French in Paris.

Everton star McFadden, who also scored in the important defeat of Ukraine earlier in the campaign, was down to 12-1 with a leading bookmaker at one stage after a patriotic plunge.

But Scotland's bid for a Euro 2008 finals place ended in a heartbreaking loss to Italy.

DARK HORSES

Tennis star Andy Murray was one of the early favourites for the 2007 award, but a nagging wrist injury ruled him out of Wimbledon.

He still broke into the world's top 10 for the first time, and won tournaments in San Jose and St Petersburg.

His brother Jamie Murray won the Wimbledon mixed doubles title with Jelena Jankovic, and also helped Great Britain to a memorable Davis Cup win over Croatia.

In motorsport, James Toseland won his second World Superbikes championship - clinching the title in his last race before switching to MotoGP next season.

And Andy Priaulx defied the odds to complete an unlikely hat-trick in the World Touring Car Championship.

Rugby league fans celebrated Great Britain's 3-0 series whitewash over New Zealand, while union supporters lauded the efforts of England's Jason Robinson.

For the 12th year running, Tony McCoy was champion jump jockey, while Flat colleagues Seb Sanders and Jamie Spencer tied a thrilling race for their championship.

World champion cyclist Victoria Pendleton was named the Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year.

British boxing's renaissance has continued with cruiserweight David Haye landing the WBA and WBC titles.

Commonwealth lightweight champion Amir Khan celebrates his 21st birthday the night before the show, when he takes on fellow Brit Graham Earl.

YOUNG SPORTS PERSONALITY

Diver Thomas Daley, table tennis player Paul Drinkhall and cricketer James Harris have made the final shortlist of three for the Young Sports Personality award.

The winner will be announced on the night of the show, and will follow in the footsteps of stars such as Wayne Rooney and Andy Murray.

Go to the BBC Switch website for video diaries, news and profiles of the candidates.

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You can put the case for your Sports Personality favourite on our 606 section.

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