Roger Alton: 2013 was even better for sport than 2012

British sport used to be dead. You only have to look down the list of past winners of the Sports Personality of the Year award to see that. In 1994 Damon Hill won it for not quite winning the Formula 1 drivers’ champion-ship; three years later Greg Rusedski won it for not quite winning the US Open. David Steele won it for making four fifties in an Ashes series. Ryan Giggs once won it just for still being around. But now things have changed. Last night three spirits came visiting. The Ghost of Sports Past poured a generous tumbler of Laphroaig, put on a DVD of 2012 and said, ‘We’ll never see a sporting year like that again.’ But he was soon replaced by the Ghost of Sports Present. ‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘You think 2012 was a good year for British sport. What about 2013?’ And he was right, this has been an astonishing year. There are no also-rans on the Sports Personality of the Year shortlist. We have the first British man to win Wimbledon for 77 years; England winning the Ashes for the third series in a row; a thrilling Lions tour of Australia in which, after two nip-and-tuck matches, the might of Britain crushed the Wallabies; a second British Tour de France champion in Chris Froome; Mo Farah doing the double-double in long-distance running, adding two world titles to his Olympic brace; and Hannah Cockroft claiming two wheelchair sprint gold medals in the Paralympic championships.

Hannah Cockroft celebrates after another victory Photo: Getty

Then we had A.P. McCoy riding his 4,000th winner; Ben Ainslie becoming the first Brit to win the America’s Cup in more than a century, leaping aboard a sinking Yankee boat to turn an 8-1 deficit into a 9-8 victory; Justin Rose becoming the first Englishman in 43 years to win the US Open; and Christine Ohuruogu winning the 400 metres world title.