Odds slashed for Sir Bradley to win BBC Sports Personality of the Year

Sir Bradley Wiggins is a contender for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, with major bookmakers William Hill slashing the odds from 66/1 to 40/1 following his gold medal in the team pursuit.

Meanwhile follow cyclist Jason Kenny is in even better shape at just 14/1 as his Rio performance looks all but certain to deliver multiple gold medals.

The favourite this year is Andy Murray however, with 5/4 odds.

“The medals just keep coming and the BBC Sports Personality of the Year is going to be a very hard fought competition this year,” said William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams.

Back in 2012, Bradley Wiggins became the third cyclist in five years to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. The Tour de France and Olympic time trial champion follows in the footsteps of 2008 winner Sir Chris Hoy and 2011’a victor, Mark Cavendish.

Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis was second, with Andy Murray, winner of the men's singles at the Olympics and the US Open, third. Dave Brailsford of Team Sky and British Cycling took the Coach of the Year title, which he had previously won following the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

A cyclist was always hotly tipped for the title, given that Wiggins, Hoy and Sarah Storey made up three of the 12 nominees for the prize.

Dressed in a velvet, double breasted, brass buttoned slim dark suit by Soho tailor Mark Powell and shiny black shoes, Wiggo swaggered up to the stage to the tune of Oasis's Fucking in the Bushes, to introduce himself - the first of the nominees to do so, just as he had been the first British athlete to appear in the London Olympics Opening Ceremony when he rang the bell to get the party started.

He joked that it wasn't an individual effort to achieve the joint Tour and Olympic victories, but, much like Gary Lineker's makeup, it was a team masterpiece, and repeatedly called Sue Barker 'Susan', to the delight of the crowd.

Accepting his prize later, he gave a shout-out to the BBC's free bar backstage, confirming suspicions that he may have familiarised himself with his surroundings at London's Excel before the show got under way.

Wiggins, Storey and Hoy were up against Ennis, Murray, Ellie Simmonds, Katherine Grainger, Ben Ainslie, David Weir, Nicola Adams, Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Rory McIlroy for the prize, returned by the 2011 winner Mark Cavendish.