Cricketer Ben Stokes is the one former winner on the checklist, which additionally options gymnastics world champion Jessica Gadirova and Winter Olympic curling gold medalist Eve Muirhead.
Mead is the heavy favorite to win the award after ending as each top-scorer and participant of the event in the course of the Ladies’s European Championships this summer season, firing England to a historic first main event success at Wembley.
Wightman, in the meantime, produced the run of his life to say a shock gold on the World Athletics Championships in Oregon, pipping Norwegian famous person and Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen in a race known as by father Geoff on stadium commentary.
O’Sullivan’s nomination seems a reward for his longevity after yet one more very good yr wherein he received the snooker world title for the seventh time, equalling Stephen Hendry’s modern-era report.
Stokes, who was named SPOTY in 2019, has led the transformation of the England males’s Take a look at facet since changing Joe Root as captain forward of the English summer season, successful 9 out of ten Assessments and solely this morning wrapping up an unprecedented 3-0 sequence whitewash over Pakistan. In Australia final month, Stokes additionally steered England to T20 World Cup glory with an unbeaten half-century within the closing in opposition to Pakistan.
Ben Stokes of England.
/ AFP through Getty PhotosMuirhead lastly ended her lengthy wait to prime an Olympic podium, skipping Group GB to ladies’s curling gold at her fourth Video games in Beijing.
Gadirova, the youngest of the nominees at 18, received three medals on the World Championships in Liverpool, together with gold on ground and bronze within the particular person all-round closing, Britain’s first ever medal within the occasion.
