BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2010: jockey Tony McCoy wins prestigious award in Birmingham

Tony McCoy, the world’s greatest jump jockey, has been rewarded for all the extraordinary hardships and even more astonishing achievements of his matchless career, by being voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2010 jockey Tony McCoy wins prestigious award in Birmingham
Top boy: Tony McCoy shows off his award in Birmingham after the jockey was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year Credit: Photo: PA

As inevitably as romping home on one of his odds-on chances, the man known universally to racegoers by his initials ‘AP’ and long recognised as the master of the most unforgiving daily beat in sport, McCoy did not just win, he obliterated the opposition as he became the first jockey to win the award in its 57 editions.

The 36-year-old Ulsterman, champion jockey for the 15th successive time and winner of this year’s Grand National, won a nationwide telephone vote by a massive margin, to beat the runner-up, 15-times darts world champion Phil Taylor, and third-placed champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis to the prize at the annual gala held in Birmingham’s LG Arena.

The award result, cheered to the rafters by a crowd of 12,000 at the Arena, will be immensely popular not just within the racing industry who pulled out all the promotional stops around the country’s racecourses to back the “Vote for AP!” campaign, but even among his fellow contenders who understood that he deserved recognition for his magnificent if unsung career.

Of the 698,242 votes, McCoy received 293,152, about 41 per cent of the poll and almost as many as the next five in the poll combined. It left his supporters believing justice had finally been done.

“He’s dominated racing like Tiger Woods dominated golf and Roger Federer dominated tennis,” his friend and rival Ruby Walsh told the audience on film.

Even Sir Alex Ferguson had reckoned it would be a travesty if McCoy had not lifted the trophy, not just because he won the National on Don’t Push It and the Champion Hurdle on Binocular, but because his career simply demanded it.

The man from Moneyglass in County Antrim, who according to his fellow jockeys, has “broken everything, every record and every bone” on his way to riding 3,383 winners from 13,664 rides, was left stunned by his triumph.

“I am dazed. To stand in front of the great athletes I was standing in front of is not something you think is ever going to happen in your life,” said McCoy.

“It is a very surreal experience – not something any sports person would think of dreaming about, even me.”

Asked how he would celebrate, the man who is famed for his life of amazingly disciplined self-denial laughed: “I don’t drink or smoke but I have got lots of friends who will absolutely abuse me now until I finally go to sleep tonight!”

The sport’s greatest workaholic had been due to ride at Carlisle on Sunday before rushing to the show but, fortunately, the meeting was cancelled.

He reckoned he would have been riding today too but the meetings at Taunton and Ffos Las have been abandoned.

It will be a rare day off for the indestructible figure who travels 75,000 miles a year to and from meetings and has fallen nearly 700 times, having broken middle and lower vertebrae, his shoulder blades, collarbones, ribs, an ankle, cheekbones, wrist, leg and he has had teeth kicked out and countless concussions.

While Graeme McDowell, fifth in the voting, and Lee Westwood, fourth, missed out on the main prize, there was ample consolation with their victorious European Ryder Cup outfit landing the Team of the Year award for the one point triumph over the USA at Celtic Manor in October.

Their inspirational captain, Colin Montgomerie, won the Coach of the Year award.

Rafael Nadal won the Overseas Personality, diver Tom Daley landed the Young Personality award for the third time and the Helen Rollason Award for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity went to 68-year-old Sir Frank Williams, the man who founded and managed the Williams F1 team.

The biggest standing ovation of the night, lasting over two minutes, was reserved for David Beckham, who had tears in his eyes after receiving his Lifetime Achievement award for his contribution to football from a former recipient, Sir Bobby Charlton.

“I’m really humbled,” he told the audience, before paying tribute to his former manager at Manchester United Sir Alex Ferguson, who he described as “the best manager in football...I regard him as a father figure”.

He dedicated his honour to British troops serving in Afghanistan.

All the night’s winners . . .

Sports Personality of the Year
Tony McCoy (horse racing)

Overseas Personality of the Year
Rafael Nadal (tennis)

Team of the year
European Ryder Cup team (golf)

Lifetime Achievement award
David Beckham (football)

Coach of the Year
Colin Montgomerie (golf)

Young Sports Personality
Tom Daley (diving)

Helen Rollason award (outstanding achievement in face of adversity)
Sir Frank Williams (formula one)

Unsung hero award
Lance Haggith (basketball coach)