Every year we use December and the run up to Christmas/New Year to celebrate the year’s achievements and this year is no different. Especially as it is an Olympic year, we have many deserving sport stars deserving praise for their success.

The BBC hand out an annual award, to one of these amazing people, called Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY). It allows the British public to vote for their SPOTY winner, from a group of nominees, who are introduced across the course of the show.  When voting for their SPOTY winner, voters often consider which of the nominees has done the best medal wise, has the best personality, broken a milestone in their sport and many other factors.

This year the nominees were: Nicola Adams - Boxing, Gareth Bale - Football, Alistair Brownlee - Triathlon, Sophie Christiansen - Equestrian, Kadeena Cox - Athletics/Cycling, Mo Farah - Athletics, Jason Kenny - Cycling, Laura Kenny – Cycling,  Andy Murray - Tennis, Adam Peaty - Swimming, Kate Richardson-Walsh - Hockey, Nick Skelton - Equestrian, Dame Sarah Storey - Cycling, Jamie Vardy - Football, Max Whitlock - Gymnastics, Danny Willett - Golf.

For the first time SPOTY history that a married couple were both nominates (Janson and Laura Kenny), however unfortunately neither won the coveted SPOTY trophy. Laura Kenny came in 8th place and her husband Jason Kenny 10th, despite having 10 Olympic golds, 10 World golds and 11 European golds between them.

This year’s SPOTY winner now holds the record for the most wins of this trophy (3), he also holds number one ranking in his sport after winning gold at the Olympics this summer and had his first child in February of this year. Can you guess who the winner was?  It was Tennis's best- Andy Murray. Even though his own wife didn't vote for him- she voted for Nick Skelton. 

Alistair Brownlee came in second place after an amazing year retaining his Olympic triathlon title in Rio. He was closely followed by Nick Skelton, in third place, who claimed individual show jumping gold at the Olympics, becoming Britain's second oldest Olympic gold medallist, 16 years after initially retiring with a broken neck.

Even though they didn’t win, all the nominees deserve endless praise for their outstanding achievements of 2016.