BBC Sports Personality Of The Year / Ralph Ellis / 09 December 2008 / Leave a comment

The public love nothing more than the girl-next-door from Mansfield with two gleaming gold medals, says Ralph Ellis, and that makes her a solid favourite for the Sports Personality of the Year.

A few days to go, and while there's a bit of a bandwagon rolling in her favour you can still get odds-against Rebecca Adlington becoming the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year. She's trading at [2.18] this morning, which is half the price she was a week ago and falling. Yet the bubbly girl from Mansfield really ought to be a shoo-in for the title. That's a pair of Jimmy Choos, to be precise.

The thing about voting for any annual award is that those who achieve most in the second half of the year always start with an advantage. They are fresh in the mind and carry the wow factor because of that. Lewis Hamilton, crowned the youngest Formula One world champion in history just a few weeks ago, was immediately in pole position for the BBC's gong for that reason.

If it was left to the professional judges to dish out the honours then he'd still be favourite. And that's not least because the BBC have a dodgy history of giving out awards on this show to sports that they are trying to promote. And yes, good old Auntie is about to dig her oily jeans out of the back of the wardrobe and start covering next year's Grand Prix season.

But this is now dominated by a telephone vote and we saw a couple of years ago when Zara Phillips came from nowhere to scoop the prize the power of the Middle England audience when they pick up their handsets and start pressing buttons.

That's where the delightful Becky is bound to score. She won the hearts of the nation in the summer by becoming the first British female swimmer since doomsday to win two Olympic Gold medals. And she did it by smashing a world record. And she retained a wonderful down to earth personality, chatting happily about her love of shopping and shoes.

As the big night approaches you can see her name slipping into a number of newspaper columns as the most deserving and that will add influence even before the show starts. Brian Reade in the Mirror got the ball rolling as he neatly summed up the strength of her claims

"Rebecca Adlington went down to her local baths every day for years, dived into a chlorinated version of the North Sea, and swam for two hours at world-class pace. Then did it again at tea-time," he wrote.

"Chris Hoy and Lewis Hamilton won on machines that had been honed by sports scientists and multinational franchises. Adlington did it solely with her own body and spirit."

It's an argument that will be repeated in several million admiring households on Saturday night. And it's why backing Becky before she goes odds-on is a great value bet.

Five things you might not know about Rebecca Adlington...

1. She had never swum before she jumped into the deep end of the pool while on holiday aged four - and immediately paddled to safety.

2. When she was 15 she had to cut back her swimming because she and her sister Laura both suffered glandular fever. Laura was critically ill for a time.

3. Her grandfather is former Derby County goalkeeper Terry Adlington.

4. The swimming pool in Mansfield is still due to be renamed in her honour when it opens after refurbishment in September next year, but the local Yates bar, which was renamed the Adlington Arms in the summer, has already gone back to its original name.

5. She says she's not normally superstitious, but wore the same swimsuit for every race in the Olympics - and always sets the volume on the TV to an even number.