Chris Hoy believes he has little chance of beating Lewis Hamilton to the BBC sports Personality of the Year award but he and everyone else in cycling should take heart from the results of the Sports Journalists' Awards.
Hoy won the SJA?s Sportsman of the Year award ahead of the Formula One champion, with cycling dominated the awards as much as they on the road and track in Beijing.
Hoy finished top of a poll of the 600-plus members of the Sports Journalists? Association of Great Britain, made up of sports writers, broadcasters, photographers and sub-editors. It is not a popular vote like the public telephone vote that will decide the BBC SPOTY award but clearly indicates the respect cycling and especially Hoy achieved in 2008.
Swimmer Rebecca Adlington won the Sportswoman of the Year prize but Olympic and world champion Nicole Cooke was second, ahead of Christine Ohuruogu, who won Britain?s only athletics gold medal in Beijing.
The Great Britain cycling team, who won 14 medals, including eight golds in Beijing and nine world titles and two silvers at the world track championships staged in Manchester in March, were named Sports Team of the Year.
Other awards went to Nicole Cooke and Rebecca Romero, the only British woman to win Olympic medals in two different sports, having won a rowing silver in Athens four years ago.
The Disabled Sports Personality of the Year award went to Paralympic cyclist Darren Kenny, who won four golds and a silver in Beijing, while Best International Newcomer was the sprint cyclist Jason Kenny, who finished second behind Hoy in the sprint and was part of the Team Sprint gold medal winning trio.
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The awards were presented at a lunch in the City of London in the presence of Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal - the winner of the Sportswoman of the Year Award in 1971 - and was hosted by the President of the Sports Journalists? Association, Sir Michael Parkinson.
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