Sports Personality of the Year Betting: Why Eddie Izzard must win

BBC Sports Personality Of The Year / Ralph Ellis / 17 September 2009 / Leave a Comment

"Izzard has just completed an incredible journey of 1,105 miles on foot all the way round Britain, in which he’s run 43 marathons in 51 days."

In a year when there is no standout candidate, Ralph Ellis makes an early bid for an unlikely candidate to walk away with the most irrelevant award in sport...

Google Eddie Izzard images and in two of the first three that come up he's wearing women's clothing. In the fourth he's dressed as a fairy. Hardly the sort of image the BBC would want for their Sports Personality of the Year.

But last night driving home in the early hours from seeing Blackpool shock Newcastle's promotion charge, I heard somebody on the radio put his name forward in all seriousness as a candidate. And to be honest it doesn't seem all that bad an idea.

Izzard has just completed an incredible journey of 1,105 miles on foot all the way round Britain, in which he's run 43 marathons in 51 days. He set off for the first one on July 26 almost unnoticed, having never run before apart from just five weeks training, and took nearly 10 hours to walk and run it. By Tuesday he was just 30 seconds outside completing the last of them in five hours.

If you've ever run or walked one marathon you'll know how tough that is. To churn out 43 of them, as Eddie has done for Comic Relief, is simply amazing. And while I've had to e-mail Betfair's helpdesk this morning to politely ask them if they'll include him in the Sports Personality market, I could see a bandwagon beginning to roll.

Some years it's tough choosing the Sports Personality because there are so many good candidates. Last year you had multiple Olympic cycling champion Chris Hoy who won it, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Rebecca Adlington. There were five other Olympic gold medallists on the short list, plus Joe Calzaghe who had won the two biggest fights of his career and Andy Murray who'd shot from nowhere to be world number four.

This time round? It's a lot easier to choose people who won't win it. Jenson Button is red hot favourite at just [2.2] and if he does take the title he'll win it pretty much by default - in much the same way he's hanging on to the Formula One prize. After a sensational start to the season - when his car was quicker than anything else on the grid - he's struggled along in a sport that's now been sullied by the Flavio Briatore/Nelson Piquet Junior crash scandal.

Some poor soul backed Murray at just [2.68] during this year's Wimbledon, before his wheels fell off. He's now as long as [60] after flopping in the US Open. And Andrew Flintoff, who ought to have been a good bet as the star of England's Ashes win, has also effectively put himself out of the running by putting cash before country now he's refused to sign a new central contract with the ECB. Meanwhile captain Andrew Strauss's chances are rated at [12] but get longer every day as his team lose yet another one-day game with the Aussies.

Current second favourite at [4.3] is Jessica Ennis, who so spectacularly won gold in the Heptathlon in the World Championships and has been installed by the marketing men as the face of the 2012 Olympics. She's at least got a chance of winning the votes of the grans at home come December. Then again I thought that would sway the award for Adlington last year and was wrong.

Who could emerge from the few months left? What about a punt on David Haye at [46.0]. After all he could become world heavyweight champion when he fights Nikolai Valuev on November 7.

Not convinced? Me neither. So I'm starting a campsign: Iz the time for Izzard!

Five things you might not know about Eddie Izzard

1. He was born in Aden in the Yemen - his dad was working for BP - but they moved to Northern Ireland when he was a year old.

2. He started doing stand-up routines as a street performer when he was kicked out of an accountancy degree course at Sheffield University

3. He's also a musician. He played piano for Midge Ure in a performance of "Vienna" at the Edinburgh festival

4. Channel Four voted him number three in their all-time list of stand-up comedians, behind Billy Connolly and Peter Kay

5. He plans to go into politics when he leaves showbusiness - probably in about ten years time, he says.