BBC Sports Personality of the Year: Who will be Britain's chosen one?

But the distillation process does not end with their exclusion. Now, to
satisfy our urge always to classify and rank, we have to decide who is the
greatest participant in this greatest of sporting years. It is down to our
phone votes to determine the first among equals.

A glance through history gives us little help in that selection process. The
award was first given in 1954, to the athlete Christopher Chataway. The
title was significant. This was not just recognition for winning. Sports
Personality meant the gong was to go to someone “whose actions have most
captured the public’s imagination”. Over the years, it was relatively
straightforward to decide who had best done that. Mary Peters in 1972, Paul
Gascoigne in 1990, Steve Redgrave in 2000: these were people whose feats
transcended their disciplines, whose performance illuminated the national
discourse.

This year, though, any one of the shortlisted dozen has done as much as that,
if not more. The other day I was at an event attended by one of the nominees
(in the interests of editorial balance it would be invidious to reveal who
it was; oh all right, it was Jessica Ennis). A naturally modest,
undemonstrative character, she was none the less the centre of attention.
Everybody wanted to talk to her, to be photographed with her, to touch her
medal. But most of all, as she graciously posed for their snapshots, they
wanted to tell her what they were doing when she triumphed on Super
Saturday. That wonderful evening has become a part of our collective
consciousness, a point of time outstanding in the emotional recall. It is
our Kennedy moment.

Across the country this autumn a similar scene has been repeated hundreds of
times with a rotating cast of dozens. Never before have we had such a
collection of young heroes to acknowledge. But it is what their victories
tell us about the nature of achievement that will have the most profound
influence on us all. Much has been spoken about the legacy of this golden
year. For the Olympic architect Lord Coe it will be one of facility and
renewal. With a whole London district detoxified and redeveloped, new places
in which to participate, he insists, will encourage us off the sofa and into
healthy activity. As his slogan claimed, a generation will be inspired.

But, as was demonstrated by the reaction to Ennis, the most inspirational
thing has not been the infrastructure. It has been the people. We have a new
landscape of heroes. And what heroes. These are not chancers who achieved
prominence through the happenstance of reality television. They did not
strike gold on a scratch card. These are people who grafted, who toiled, who
spent years sweating unseen and unnoticed. It was not just because she has a
nice pair of legs that Ennis stood on the podium, choking back the tears as
the national anthem played. She was there because of the number of times she
defied every insistent urge to stay in bed on cold January mornings and
instead went out and trained. She was there because when every aching muscle
told her to go home and have a hot bath, she forced herself on another lap
of the running track.

What we have witnessed in 2012 is a new type of fame, one based on a
foundation of unstinting hard work. Imagine what a difference that will make
to the rest of us. If the national attitude shifts but one degree away from
the expectation of something for nothing to the realisation that the best
route to success is via application, that will be some legacy. Indeed that
is why ultimately the result tomorrow night is the least important part of
the event. Whoever wins, what we will celebrate is the triumph of effort. Be
it Brad or Mo, Andy or Jess, Ellie or Rory, of this we can be certain: the
nation is a better place for their success.

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2012, BBC One Sunday 7.30pm