Sir Mo Farah has won the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award for 2017.
Farah was a surprising winner as many had believed boxing world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua would secure the prize. Even Farah's coach, Gary Lough, was filmed swearing by BBC cameras in the aftermath of the announcement. Lough is also Paula Radcliffe's husband.
Everyone absolutely delighted at young Farah's win, by Jove. Majestic #spoty pic.twitter.com/37aLHpFqoi
— Tweeter Alliss (@TweeterAlliss) December 17, 2017
Farah secured a third consecutive world 10,000m gold medal, a silver in the 5,000m and was knighted by the Queen this year. He also split with controversial coach Alberto Salazar last October, although he denied that it had anything to do with the US anti-doping investigation surrounding the American.
Salazar's running of the Nike Oregon Project leader had been called into question earlier this year. Farah returned to the UK and teamed up with Gary Lough.
His reaction didn't go unnoticed either:
Mo Farah's reaction was like 'damn, maybe I should've gone this year'. Maybe thought he had no chance, it wasn't his most successful year after all. Strange reaction from Gary Lough. His new coach? #SPOTY
— Feast of Stephen (@Stevecathutch) December 17, 2017
@paulajradcliffe husband Gary Lough didn’t look happy with Mo Farah winning #SPOTY 😂😂😂
— Lee.ds (@anyoldsport) December 17, 2017
Love Paula Radcliffe's husband mouthing "fucking joke" as Mo Farah wins #SPOTY. Whatever could he mean? 😂
— Merlin's Wand (@HowB1zarre) December 17, 2017
Surely sir Mo Farah winning Sports personality of the year doesn’t warrant a shake of the head and a comment of fucking joke😂😂 #spoty 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/N8dTx3AP3f
— Chris Birkbeck (@Cooch81) December 17, 2017
That bloke next to Paula Radcliffe's face when Mo was announced 😶😂 like that episode of friends where Joey doesn't win the award #awks
— hαnnα (@hannajc94) December 17, 2017
Shambolic yet hilarious end to #spoty. Lost transmission with Mo and then cut to Paula Radcliffe’s hubby calling him a f**king joke
— Katie Hearn-Cross (@k_hearn) December 17, 2017
Can’t quite believe how shambolic the end of that programme was. Good luck to Mo Farah, but couldn’t he have been there? And what was Paula Radcliffe’s husband moaning about? https://t.co/WMCMuToBWQ
— Neil Drysdale (@NeilDrysdale) December 17, 2017
I take it Paula Radcliffe’s husband not a massive fan of @Mo_Farah then... #spoty #lipreading
— Tom Collins (@tridadathon_tom) December 17, 2017
Farah was unable to attend the event in Liverpool and had appeared via live stream until it crashed. Joshua failed to make the top three of the viewers' vote, with motorcyclist Jonathan Rea runner-up and Paralympian Jonnie Peacock coming in third.
A live stream was also shown of Chris Froome. It was revealed this week that Froome failed a drugs test during his victory at this year's Vuelta a Espana. The event was hosted by Claire Balding, Gabby Logan and Gary Lineker and it was Balding who raised this week's controversy with Froome, to which he replied
I understand the concerns. I’ve been a bike rider for 10 years, I know how some people might look at our sport.
That’s a responsibility that I take really seriously. I’m an asthmatic and I have been since I was a child. I have a puffer to help me manage my asthma. I’ve never taken more puffs than I should. This is quite a horrible situation. We’re working as hard as we can to get to the bottom of it.
As for Farah, It's hard to know what Gary Lough meant by the remark. Some have argued he was reacting to the stream going down, although it did appear that his reaction was well before that:
Congratulations Mo Farah.#SPOTY 2017. pic.twitter.com/tt1xIszhkF
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) December 17, 2017
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