Chris Hoy BBC Sports Personality of the year - NOT Hamilton

antfly

Hamilton left for switzerland as soon as he got his job with mclaren so he didn`t have to pay tax,but are there any racing drivers who don`t move to avoid tax?He did insult our intelligence a little by saying he was going to switzerland to get away from the press.

Cooke can`t win,mainly because she`s no beauty.Victoria Pendleton on the other hand..........If i could i`d give her one {a vote that is}.

graeme_s-2

antfly wrote:

Hamilton left for switzerland as soon as he got his job with mclaren so he didn`t have to pay tax,but are there any racing drivers who don`t move to avoid tax?

Olivier Panis. Lived in France and proudly paid tax throughout his entire career.

dodgy

I'm genually surprised that so many people on a cycling discussion board intend not to vote for Hoy. After all, we all understand the intense physical pain associated with cycling, even at our own personal levels. I'm not saying that F1 drivers aren't fit, that's not my point, it's the empathy I would expect most cyclists to feel with Hoy that appears to be missing here. As I said, very surprising.

I think there's little chance of Hoy winning, the public will put us cyclists back in our box because as far as they're concerned, we've had our glory with umpteen medals in the last year, and actually, they don't really like us anyway :shock:

Dave.

rob_spedding

Mark Webber lives in Oxfordshire. And he rides a bike. SPOTY? (Yeah, alright he's Aussie, and hasn't won owt but hey...)

Parsnip49

dodgy wrote:

I'm genually surprised that so many people on a cycling discussion board intend not to vote for.

I wasnt going to vote at all, but since reading some of the responses on this thread, Hamilton is defo getting my vote.

This will be my last post in this thread, as its going nowhere, but i will make one observation.

Myself and the others defending F1 and Hamilton aren't knocking Hoy's acchievements - or the acchievements of any of the GB cycling team - far from it, its a great thing to have a british team on top - why be modest, noone else can come close to us.

The majority of posts by people voting for hoy seem to be concentrated on slagging off Hamilton - which is utter nonsense, and the very reason ill be voting for him, seriously guys, you go on about being proud of a british acchievement then proceed to moan about hamilton. The people who say its all about the car actually know nothing and fail to appreciate what a F1 driver has to do - look at the top gear episode where hammond drove the renault f1...

Anti-Scottish? LOL.... eejit....

antfly

Rob Spedding wrote:

Mark Webber lives in Oxfordshire. And he rides a bike. SPOTY? (Yeah, alright he's Aussie, and hasn't won owt but hey...)

Maybe he`s a non-dom so doesn`t pay tax. Good for Panis though maybe he was a Monaco resident.
BTW what is SPOTY?

dodgy

Rob Spedding wrote:

BTW what is SPOTY?

Sports Personality Of The Year maybe?

dodgy

And I find it funny that so many have said "after reading the posts here" they're now going to vote for Hamilton. Is this some kind of geeky punishment against those with opposing views?

By the way, I haven't said which way I'm voting, I was just surprised at the partial support Hoy is attracting 8)

graeme_s-2

antfly wrote:

Rob Spedding wrote:

Mark Webber lives in Oxfordshire. And he rides a bike. SPOTY? (Yeah, alright he's Aussie, and hasn't won owt but hey...)

Maybe he`s a non-dom so doesn`t pay tax. Good for Panis though maybe he was a Monaco resident.

Nope, Panis lived in France proper, not Monaco (which politically isn't "in" France as far as I'm aware).

Pretty sure Webber's a proper British resident, he lives with his partner who owns a restaurant. To be a non-dom he'd probably have to spend most of the off season outside the UK wouldn't he? I don't believe he does so.

Fernando Alonso also lives in the UK, but he owns a house in Switzerland as well, so could well be a non-dom.

In the UK such individuals have a special tax status which limits them to paying tax on income and gains from UK sources, and on foreign income and gains which are remitted to the UK.

As they both work for British based Formula 1 teams I suspect they couldn't get away with being non-doms to avoid paying tax on those earnings anyway could they?

rob_spedding

Well it's got me thinking:

http://www.bikeradar.com/blogs/article/ ... lity-19211

pintoo

Oh dear. And we wonder why cyclists aren't liked. This anti-Hamilton stuff is just embarrassing.

Vote for who you want to vote for, but don't pass off ill-informed opinions as facts.

There is a difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. The former is perfectly legal and if you were in the position of having to give away half of your money, I seriously doubt you would so glibly hand it over as the right thing to do. Frankly, this is just the politics of greed at play. Trying to influence a vote is OK - it's just a popularity contest - but Earthbound has worked against Hoy in his arguments. Don't be so petty. If you have an axe to grind about money lost from the system, take a long hard look at the banks' bail-out cash, the tax evaders in our country, and those who live off benefits only out of laziness. Before I get attacked for being a Toryboy, I am not, but if you want to know why many deserving people and institutions are without funds they should have, it's not because Hamilton doesn't pay tax. Do the maths. There are foreign national multi-billionaires living in the UK because it's tax friendly for them - they earn far more than Hamilton and our Labour Govt. doesn't try to extact tax from them. Murdoch hasn't paid anything compared to waht he takes out of the country. Roman Abrahmovic pays nothing. Get some freakin' perspective.

Nuggs

Parsnip49 wrote:

dodgy wrote:

I'm genually surprised that so many people on a cycling discussion board intend not to vote for.

I wasnt going to vote at all, but since reading some of the responses on this thread, Hamilton is defo getting my vote.

+1

As for the tax thing: if you're able to manage your tax bill legally but don't bother, instead leaving a bunch of misinformed beaurocrats to spend your hard-earned for you, I reckon that makes you a bit of a muppet...

eh

To argue that anyone can ride a bike compared to drive an F1 car is a crock. You can't just take the average punter off the street give them a twitchy top end road bike and get them to descend an Alpine stage and stay in the peleton by the bottom, they'd be left in tears or last seen hurtling off the edge somewhere.

rob_spedding

And take any punter off the street and put them in an F1 car, they'd a) either not get out of the pits or b) be dead by the end of the first lap....

singlespeedexplosif

jpembroke wrote:

As it's a British Sports Personality we're talking about here, shouldn't we be voting for someone who hasn't won anything? That's what usually happens anyway.

An interesting, if bewildering point. Can you give me an example please? I've looked back at the winners since 1980 and all of them have won things. I can't be bothered to go back further but presumably you have some good evidence to back up this claim?

graeme_s-2

singlespeedexplosif wrote:

An interesting, if bewildering point. Can you give me an example please? I've looked back at the winners since 1980 and all of them have won things. I can't be bothered to go back further but presumably you have some good evidence to back up this claim?

Both Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill won SPotY before they'd won the WDC. They both won it in years when they closely contested, but failed to win the WDC. Fair enough they'd won races in those years, but I suspect they won SPotY for nearly winning the WDC, not for winning a few races. They were both also SPotY in the years they won their WDCs as well.

sloboy

Personally, I favour Hoy, just because is one of the best performances and now career records of any Briton in any Olympic sport.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mu ... _medalists

Joint 99th in Olympic history across all sports. He's also unusual of course in that his 4 golds are in 4 different events. So it's a pretty special achievement.

I note it also makes him the second highest cyclist in that table, behind van Moorsel.

Hamilton has a great chance of having a great career but he has only just started.

pintoo

sloboy wrote:

Hamilton has a great chance of having a great career but he has only just started.

Hm... and he broke a shedload of records in his rookie year, took the championship to the final race, challenged a double World Champion in Alonso and came close to beating Raikonnen. No other rookie in F1 has had that kind of impact.

I'm not against anyone at all which is why I can't see why anyone's achievements should be diminished. Over his short career, Hamilton has made F1 interesting again. The British cycling team did the same thing in Beijing, but that interest didn't even last until now - see the article on Bike Radar on whether the British domination is boring (!). I actually disagreed with the notion, but where's the press coverage gone?

All in all, a very good year for British sport. Supporting one shouldn't mean dissing another. If Hamilton's win has been "overblown" (OP's view), it's not his doing, but the media's. He is a once in a generation talent, and he's British.

robthehungrymonkey

I think the British cycling team has got about as much publicity as they can realisticly expect, which is LOADS more than before, and when you consider the change from a year or two ago is simply awesome!

The bottom line is, all my friends watched the Brazillian GP because of Hamilton. I am the only one interested in F1. Nobody watched the World track champs...

I really hope cycling in this country continues this upward path, but this is the beginning, and I don't think we cyclists can expect much more. Now lets see this track success transferred to the road!

I can't believe the same person that was criticising Hamilton for being dull said...

"I would say sports personality of the year would have to go to Hoy or Murray." Murray! I'm a big tennis fan, and he's arguably the best British Tennis player for decades... but not the most sparkling personality.

frenchfighter

Mark Cavendish:
2008: 19 First places, including 4 in the TdF (in itself incredible)
Previous years (impressive): http://www.markcavendish.com/palmares.htm

Chris Hoy:
2008: 3 Olympic Golds, 2 World Championship Golds, 1 WC Silver
Previous years (incredible): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hoy

Nicole Cooke:
2008: Olympic Gold, Gold UCI World Champs, Gold British National Road Race
Previous years (outstanding): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole_Cooke

Victoria Pendleton:
2008: 2 Golds World Track Champs, 1 Silver WTC, 1 Olympic Gold, 3 Golds British National Track Champs
Previous years (incredible): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Pendleton

Lewis Hamilton:
2008: Formula 1 Grand Prix 1st, including for individual races: 5 1sts, 2 2nds, 3 3rds
Previous years (impressive): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hamilton

Rebecca Adlington:
2008: 2 Olympic Golds, 1 Gold World Champs, 1 Silver WC, 3 Golds British Champs, 2 Golds ASA Champs, 1 Silver ASA Champs
Previous years (ok): http://tinyurl.com/5uq3kq

I view achievements in road cycling as far superior to those on the track, so taking that and a few other things into consideration I would go for Nicole Cooke or Mark Cavendish (although he should probably be better suited in later years when he has hopefully won a sprinter's jersey for the Giro, the Tour or both).

I don't think Hamilton has done enough this year to deserve it. Formula 1 isn't a 'sport' in my opinion anyway.

Addlington's achievements this year are better than I expected. Consider though that a medal in swimming is incomparable to a medal in road cycling, although comparable to a medal in track cycling. I think she will win, but don't particularly want her to win. The only swimming events brought to the attention of the public are the Olympics so I doubt she could win it in any other year.

Anyway I have little faith in the British public - how can you take this award seriously when Zara Philips won it in 2007 - basically she won because she is somewhat connected to those people who we pay to live in Buckingham Palace. Sadly the voters saw that and all sense of 'sporting achievement' went out the window.

robthehungrymonkey

frenchfighter wrote:

I view achievements in road cycling as far superior to those on the track, so taking that and a few other things into consideration I would go for Nicole Cooke or Mark Cavendish (although he should probably be better suited in later years when he has hopefully won a sprinter's jersey for the Giro, the Tour or both).

I completely agree. But you can't give it to Cav until he's wearing the jersey at the end of the tour.

dodgy

For the public to sit up and take notice, I think it would taking nothing less than winning the Tour de France, not a stage, but the race. To the average Brit, the TdeF is cycling, most people haven't even heard of the Giro or the Spring Classics. and track cycling is that funny sport where people wear costumes and funny hats, though that may now be changing, it's not enough to sway the voters from 'normal' sports.

As frenchfighter says, the SPOTY is more or less in disrepute since last year, do we really care that much about it anymore?

frenchfighter

Hey mr monkey I agree, although 4 stage wins in le Tour in itself is an unbelievable record - can't find the exact stat about where this stands in the most Tour wins table but remember seeing it before and know it is maybe top 5, at least top 10.

As an aside, I just came across this statistics page: http://www.cyclinghalloffame.com/races/ ... france.txt

Just saw that Zabel won the green jersey 6 times - now that is incredible in the realm of sprinting.

dodgy - I don't care about it really and have never voted once in my life.

"For all their fearlessness, sprinters are a delicate breed. At the peak of form they effuse an aura of invincibility, suggesting no bicycle rider ever pedaled as fast. To win, sprinters must have everything: physical condition, confidence, luck, aggression and committed team support. An elusive combination, attainable but not sustainable." — David Walsh, Inside the Tour de France

"If you brake, you don't win." Racer Mario Cipollini

"You have to sprint on feeling, not thinking. You must have faith in yourself but you cannot think about it too much." — Jean Paul Van Poppel

"I'm fascinated by the sprinters. They suffer so much during the race just to ge to the finish, they hang on for dear life in the climbs, but then in the final kilometers they are transformed and do amazing things. It's not their force per se that impresses me, but rather the renaissance they experience. Seeing them suffer throughout the race only to be reborn in the final is something for fascination." — Miguel Indurain

frenchfighter

For all those who support Hamilton and love the 'sport' of F1 I suggest you voice your opinions here: http://www.forumula1.net/forum/

If you haven't realised this is a BIKE forum.

The irony of Hamilton's win is that if Glock had changed his tyres Hamilton wouldn't have won. That is what that 'sport' comes down to. I'm not knocking Hamilton as I can see how incredible he is in comparison to his peers, but F1 just doesn't cut it.

Comparing F1 to Cycling is like comparing a 4th Cat to a Pro.

"Pain is a big fat creature riding on your back. The farther you pedal, the heavier he feels. The harder you push, the tighter he squeezes your chest. The steeper the climb, the deeper he digs his jagged, sharp claws into your muscles." — Scott Martin

dsmiff

Perhaps someone should change the title of the thread then?

Mettan

frenchfighter wrote:

Addlington's achievements this year are better than I expected. Consider though that a medal in swimming is incomparable to a medal in road cycling, although comparable to a medal in track cycling. I think she will win, but don't particularly want her to win. The only swimming events brought to the attention of the public are the Olympics so I doubt she could win it in any other year.

To expand that a bit though FF, Becky became a Double Olympic Champion (400 & 800 Freestyle) as a Teenager (19 year old) and broke Janet Evans' World Record in the 800 (longest standing in swimming.......) - not bad going for a teenager from Mansfield.......... fully agree with you though French, that Cooke deserves vastly more plaudits for her superb achievements (and Cav's wins were sensational). I'd like to see Becky and Nicole both doing well.

Feltup

Ben Ainsley won his 3rd Gold Medal this year. So over four Olympics he has achieved silver and 3 golds. Now that is getting on towards Steve Redgrave territory but because it is sailing he will get a 10second mention.

We also have Aaron Hadlow 5 time world champion in Kitesurfing. You might think that kitesurfing isn't a real sport like motor racing or cycling because it isn't in the Olympics or broadcast across the world but the amount those guys train is right up there with all other top athletes.

There are so many deserving athletes this year but out of all the cyclists I would like to see Cooke win it. She was like a catalyst for the whole games and put in a fantastically gutsy performance.

frenchfighter

'...but because it is sailing he will get a 10second mention.'

Feltup, do you realise that anything invloving horses, anything involving boats, anything invloving a saber and anything with a link to those people who we pay to stay in Buckingham Palace, is loved by the British.

So that includes rowing. It does not include cycling.

Mr Redgrave won SPOTY in 2000 ddn't he.

But, I agree with your underlying point that minority sports where we do so well are pushed aside in favour of popular sports where we can't compete. It comes back to why on Earth do we have to watch Football or F1 - there are hundreds of more interesting sports which never get a look in.

robthehungrymonkey

frenchfighter wrote:

For all those who support Hamilton and love the 'sport' of F1 I suggest you voice your opinions here: http://www.forumula1.net/forum/

If you haven't realised this is a BIKE forum.

The irony of Hamilton's win is that if Glock had changed his tyres Hamilton wouldn't have won.

Sorry dude, But Glock was only ahead of hamilton because he didn't change tyres. Beforehand he was behind Hamilton.
He also lost the title by a single point the previous season.

Sing Hoy's praises if you want to support him. Not whining about a sportsperson you obviously don't understand.

frenchfighter

Sorry for my lack of understanding of F1, I guess being a bike rider through and through I should know more about a sport involving engines...oh wait they aren't human engines rather mechanical ones.

'The bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon.' -Bill Strickland