Sir Mo Farah named Sports Personality Of The Year

  • Sport
Credit: PA

Sir Mo Farah has won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.

The 34-year-old was the third favourite coming into evening - with heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua the bookies' tip - but finally won the award after a previous best finish of third in 2011.

Northern Irish Superbike World Champion Jonathan Rea came in second place, while Paralympian Jonnie Peacock third.

The much sought-after Team of the Year prize was won by the England Women cricket team - a fitting tribute to their superb victory at the World Cup in July, which was also marked in Sunday's show by star bowler Anya Shrubsole being among the 12 nominees for the top prize.

The Coach of the Year award was shared by Benke Blomkvist, Stephen Maguire and Christian Malcolm, who helped Great Britain's men's 4x100metres relay quartet claim gold at the World Athletics Championships in London.

Farah, who claimed a third consecutive world 10,000 metres title in London in August, was among four of the 12 nominees not present in Liverpool, which suggested he did not fancy his 33-1 odds either.

Mo Farah on a videolink with his daughter Rhianna and son Hussein. Credit: PA

His world title victory was achieved despite almost falling over twice in the final, which is almost how he achieved this win, too.

First, his son Hussein pulled his microphone off during his initial video-link interview with BBC presenter Gabby Logan.

His daughter Rhianna partially rescued the situation by removing Hussein, only for the Somalian-born star to be left sitting on his microphone for much of the interview.

And then, when his shock victory was announced, the link to his location in London went down.

The live video link with Mo Farah failed during the presentation. Credit: PA

In a subsequent interview on the BBC, he said: "I didn't see this coming, I thought I wasn't going to win it.

"You look at this year and Jonnie Peacock, Anthony Joshua, Lewis Hamilton, it's been incredible. When you see that list and put yourself in there, you think, 'I might finish top three, maybe'.

"Having come so close after London 2012, I thought that was my best chance of winning. I just thought, 'Mate, this thing is hard to win!'.

"Thank you to everyone that voted for me, I'm just sorry I can't be there to celebrate.