Stars of London 2012 dominate Sports Personality shortlist

After a golden summer of home-grown sport, the event promises to be the biggest in the programme’s 59-year history.

Sheffield heptathlete Ennis, the poster girl for the Games, won gold in one of Team GB’s most unforgettable victories – clocking a British points record of 6,955 and setting the fastest-ever 100m hurdle heptathlon time.

And Adams, from Leeds, made Olympic history by becoming the first woman to win a boxing gold medal and a role model for a new generation of female fighters.

They are nominated alongside cyclists Sir Chris Hoy, who won his fifth and sixth gold medals this summer, making him Britain’s most successful Olympian, and Bradley Wiggins, who won Olympic gold just 10 days after becoming the first Briton to win the Tour de France.

Tennis ace Andy Murray, who followed his Olympic gold in the men’s singles by winning the US Open, is also on the shortlist, as is Paralympic swimmer Ellie Simmonds, who won two gold medals, a silver and a bronze.

Athletes Mo Farah and David Weir, sailor Ben Ainslie, golfer Rory McIlroy, cyclist Sarah Storey and rower Katherine Grainger are also in the running for the coveted prize.

Barbara Slater, the BBC’s sports director, said it had been “very difficult” to leave a number of deserving Olympic and Paralympic athletes off the list as well as stars from other sports.

“If we ever needed reminding just how special a sporting year it has been, then the list of those sportspeople who did not make the final 12 is testament to that,” she wrote on her blog.

The awards ceremony will be broadcast live on December 16.