BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award

"Helen Rollason Award" redirects here. For the Helen Rollason Award for Inspiration, see Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards.

BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award
CountryUnited Kingdom
Presented byBBC Sports Personality of the Year
First awarded1999; 25 years ago (1999)
Most recent winnerFatima Whitbread (2023)

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award is an award given annually as part of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremony each December. The award is given “for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity”, and BBC Sport selects the winner.[1] The award is named after the BBC sports presenter Helen Rollason, who died in August 1999 at the age of 43 after suffering from cancer for two years.[2][3] Helen Rollason was the first female presenter of Grandstand. After being diagnosed with cancer, she helped raise over £5 million to set up a cancer wing at the North Middlesex Hospital, where she received most of her treatment.[4]

The inaugural recipient of the award was horse trainer Jenny Pitman, in 1999. Other winners include South African Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who won the award in 2007. Several recipients have not played a sport professionally, including Jane Tomlinson, who won in 2002, Kirsty Howard (2004), Phil Packer (2009), Anne Williams, who received the award posthumously in 2013, and eight-year-old Bailey Matthews (2015). Michael Watson, who won the award in 2003, had a career in boxing but was paralysed and almost killed in a title bout with Chris Eubank. He won the award for completing the London Marathon, an accomplishment that took him six days.[5] Former footballer Geoff Thomas won the award in 2005; he raised money by cycling the 2,200 miles (3,540.56 km) of the 2005 Tour de France course in the same number of days as the professionals completed it.[6] In 2006, Paul Hunter posthumously received the award; he died from dozens of malignant neuroendocrine tumours – his widow Lindsay accepted the award on his behalf.[7]

  1. ^ "Sports Personality voting & judging: Terms & conditions". BBC Sport. BBC. 18 November 2008. Archived from the original on 17 December 2008. Retrieved 17 December 2008.
  2. ^ Marks, Kathy (10 August 1999). "BBC sports presenter Helen Rollason dies". The Independent. Independent News & Media. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  3. ^ Shannon, Sarah (4 November 1999), "BBC bravery award to remember Helen", Evening Standard
  4. ^ "Helen Rollason: Presenter with fighting spirit". BBC News. BBC. 10 August 1999. Archived from the original on 15 February 2009. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  5. ^ Fordyce, Tom (19 April 2003). "Poignant end to Watson's epic journey". BBC Sport. BBC. Archived from the original on 4 September 2007. Retrieved 26 January 2009.
  6. ^ "Geoff Thomas Takes on the World of Mountain Biking". British Cycling. Archived from the original on 3 February 2007. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
  7. ^ "Hunter loses battle with cancer". BBC Sport. BBC. 9 October 2006. Archived from the original on 21 December 2008. Retrieved 25 January 2009.