Mary Earps strong favourite to be named BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year

Signal as much as our free sport publication for all the newest information on every thing from biking to boxing

Signal as much as our free sport e mail for all the newest information

Mary Earps is the bookmakers’ odds-on favorite to be voted the BBC’s Sports activities Persona of the Yr for 2023 on Tuesday night time.

Earps was a key a part of the England soccer staff which reached the Ladies’s World Cup closing in the summertime, having been topped champions of Europe in 2022.

She has been shortlisted for the distinguished BBC prize alongside former cricketer Stuart Broad, jockey Frankie Dettori, athlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson, tennis participant Alfie Hewett and golfer Rory McIlroy.

Earps saved a penalty from Spain’s Jenni Hermoso within the World Cup closing, however the Lionesses slipped to a 1-0 defeat in Sydney. The 30-year-old was awarded the FIFA Golden Glove because the event’s finest goalkeeper.

In September she was additionally voted England’s girls’s participant of the yr and helped her membership Manchester United end second within the Ladies’s Tremendous League final season with 14 clear sheets.

Her future at United is unsure, nonetheless, with Earps’ contract with the membership as a result of expire subsequent summer time.

Earps additionally hit the headlines early on on the World Cup when she spoke in regards to the harm she felt that sportswear producer Nike had not made her England goalkeeper’s duplicate jersey accessible to buy earlier than the event.

After mounting strain, the sports activities model launched her inexperienced long-sleeved Lionesses shirt and it offered out in 5 minutes. Earps advised Sky Information on the weekend she thought the corporate had realized its lesson.

“On this matter, they know that they acquired this improper and that’s why they’ve achieved this correction – an enormous firm like Nike, they wouldn’t try this in the event that they didn’t realize it wasn’t proper and that there was an injustice there,” Earps stated.

“They did the appropriate factor and I can’t thank the general public sufficient for his or her help and we wouldn’t be on this place with out it.

“I used to be actually ‘um-ing and ah-ing’ whether or not to make use of my voice and to talk on it or not. I assumed I used to be simply talking for a distinct segment of goalkeepers, however it turned out to be help from a lot wider group of individuals.

“I believe from that, collectively, we’ve actually modified the world, so thanks to everybody.”

Broad introduced he was retiring from cricket in the course of the fifth Ashes Check in the summertime and bowed out in spectacular trend. The 37-year-old hit a six off his closing ball and took the ultimate wicket as England received the match to degree the collection, although Australia retained the urn.

Dettori, 53, secured a collection of huge wins in his farewell yr in UK racing, together with the 2000 Guineas on Chaldean and the Oaks on Soul Sister. He’s set to proceed driving in the USA subsequent yr.

Johnson-Thompson claimed the world heptathlon title for the second time in Budapest in the summertime after a calf damage wrecked her hopes of Olympic glory in Tokyo in 2021.

Hewett received seven wheelchair tennis singles tournaments in 2023, together with the Australian and US Open titles. He additionally secured the doubles titles on the Australian and French Opens plus Wimbledon alongside companion Gordon Reid.

McIlroy was a key a part of Europe’s victorious Ryder Cup-winning staff in October and completed within the high 10 at three of the yr’s 4 majors.

Former Liverpool participant and supervisor Kenny Dalglish will obtain the Lifetime Achievement Award on the ceremony in Salford on Tuesday night time.