Sports Personality of the Year 2025: Lionesses square off on six-strong shortlist
Three world champions, two European champions and the holder of a grand slam will face off next Thursday for the title of BBC Sports Personality of the Year, in a shortlist that provides a high-powered boost to the venerable prize show.Following a triumphant summer for England’s women in both football and rugby, Chloe Kelly and Hannah Hampton of the Lionesses are nominated, as is the Red Roses’ Ellie Kildunne.They are joined in the six-person shortlist by Formula One champion Lando Norris, darts world champion Luke Littler and Masters champion Rory McIlroy, the bookies’ favourite.Kelly and Hampton were at the centre of England’s penalty shootout win over Spain in the Euro 2025 final, with Kelly scoring the winning spot-kick after Hampton had made two critical saves.For their club sides, Kelly was part of Arsenal’s Champions League winning team, while Hampton won a domestic treble with Chelsea.
Kildunne, meanwhile, was the key player as England won the Women’s Rugby World Cup, scoring five tries across the tournament, including one in the final against Canada.At the age of 26, Norris was crowned world champion for the first time just last weekend in a dramatic climax to the Formula One campaign in Abu Dhabi.Still only 18, Littler started the year by becoming the youngest world champion in darts history and went on to complete the PDC Triple Crown, only the fifth player to do so.Finally, McIlroy has enjoyed two great victories in 2025, becoming only the sixth man to complete a grand slam of golf’s four majors after he won the Masters in Augusta.He then followed it up with 3½ points in Europe’s away victory over the USA at the Ryder Cup, despite being the object of constant abuse from the home supporters.
If any of Kelly, Hampton or Kildunne walk home with the famous silver trophy of an old-fashiong TV camera it will be the fifth triumph for a female athlete in the past five years.There is even the prospect of a repeat of 1962, when the podium positions were entirely occupied by women for the only time in Spoty’s history.The winner that year was Anita Lonsbrough, a swimmer, who had claimed three gold medals at that year’s British Empire and Commonwealth Games.Athlete Dorothy Hyman and swimmer Linda Ludgrove were second and third.A rise in female winners reflects something of the quandary facing the 72nd edition of this award.
The ceremony has seen declining audience figures in recent years, with Mary Earps’s success in 2023 drawing an average of only 2.9m viewers.On the other hand, terrestrial television has been crucial in boosting the prominence of women’s sport and, as BBC promotional materials note, the Euros final was the most-watched television moment of the year, with 16.2 million viewers across both BBC and ITV.Confirming the abiding power and influence of free-to-air television during “must-see” events, it makes one of the Lionesses’ pair much more likely to be crowned winners.
McIlroy has confirmed he will attend this year’s ceremony, after failing to show in 2023 when he suggested the prize “is not really what it once was”,He did not acknowledge his nomination on social media, however, and neither did Norris,Littler, Kelly and Hampton posted an image of acknowledgement on their Instagram stories, but only Kildunne added a caption: “Pinch me”,Sports Personality of the Year will be held at Salford Media City on 18 December, hosted by Clare Balding, Gabby Logan and Alex Scott,Other prizes set to be awarded on the night include Young Sports Personality of the Year and World Sports Personality.
The shortlist for Young Personality comprises Lioness Michelle Agyemang, Littler and breakout star of the Hundred, Davina Perrin.The World Personality shortlist includes the pole vaulter Armand Duplantis, the men’s footballer of the year Mohamed Salah, and baseball icon Shohei Ohtani.
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