Viewers backed Jonny in droves
Jonny Wilkinson polled almost half the votes cast to run away with the title of BBC Sports Personality of the Year, figures released today reveal.
The remarkable popularity of England's World Cup rugby heroes is also highlighted by the fact that, between them, Wilkinson and runner-up Martin Johnson received nearly four-fifths of the TV viewers' 700,000-plus votes on Sunday night.
Wilkinson polled 49 per cent of the vote with a total of 344,573 while his captain received 210,361.
The previous year's winner, Paula Radcliffe, had won the London Marathon in what some experts believe to be the greatest world best time of all but she received only 69,243 votes, for a distant third place.
It prompted an embarrassed Johnson to ask incredulously: "How fast does Paula have to run a marathon to win this thing?"
Sir Steve Redgrave was an equally emphatic winner of the public poll to find the "Golden Personality" as the most outstanding winner in the 50-year history of the awards.
The five-times Olympic champion oarsman tallied 341,632 votes, which represented 51 per cent of the total cast.
He faced stiff competition from England captain David Beckham, Ian Botham, Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean, and Bobby Moore.
