Chris Froome

Chris Froome enjoyed another stellar year on the road, winning his third Tour de France in four years when he stormed to the yellow jersey in the summer.

Froome, 31, has been nominated twice before – after his two previous Tour victories in 2013 and 2015, and the Kenyan-born Brit will fancy his chances of being on the shortlist again.

His Tour victory was the stand-out moment, but Froome also won two stages on his way to second place overall at the Vuelta a Espana, won the Criterium du Dauphine for a third time, and claimed time trial bronze at Rio 2016.

So driven was he for success at the Tour, he even resorted to running – in his cleats – part of the way up Mont Ventoux after a crash caused by roadside spectators blocking the TV moto.

Froome’s successes took his career tally to seven Grand Tour podium finishes while only Mark Cavendish and Chris Boardman now have more professional wins than Froome, after the Team Sky man took his career tally to 38.

2016 highlight: Froome stormed to victory at the Tour de France in July, repeatedly catching his rivals out with a great tactical ride. His ungainly but super-effective descent on the Col de Peyresourde, which earned him stage eight victory and the yellow jersey for the first time, epitomised those efforts.

SPOTY history: Nominated in 2013 and 2015, sixth both times

Odds: 100/1

Laura Kenny

Laura Trott shot to fame as a 20-year-old in 2012 after winning two golds on the track at London 2012 and the Essex-born rider repeated the feat at Rio 2016 to become Britain’s most successful ever female Olympian.

Not only that, she is also the most successful female track cyclist in Olympic history and, still aged just 24, she has time to stretch that record even further.

Trott also won two world titles back in February, taking her career tally to seven after victories in the omnium and scratch race, accompanied by a team pursuit bronze medal.

It’s not just Trott’s victories which have been impressive either, but the manner of them – the 24-year-old won three of the first five events in the six-event Olympic omnium and finished second in the other two to leave her well-placed to defend her lead in the final points race.

Unlucky not to be nominated after her 2012 success, Trott – now Laura Kenny, after marrying fellow multiple gold medallist Jason in September – is surely a shoo-in for a place on the shortlist this time out.

2016 highlight: Kenny went into both her Olympic events – team pursuit and omnium – as defending champion, and rose to the occasion in style. Prior to Rio 2016, no British woman had ever claimed three gold medals. Following her dominant omnium success, Laura Kenny has four.

SPOTY history: No previous nominations.

Odds: 14/1

Lizzie Deignan

Lizzie Armitstead rose to the pressure of racing in the rainbow jersey of world road race champion in some style in 2016.

The Yorkshirewoman bagged seven victories, including three in her first four races as world champion – the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strada Bianche and Trofeo Alfredo Binda one-day races.

She took that momentum onto the Ladies Tour of Flanders, where she became the second British woman – after Nicole Cooke – to win the iconic cobbled Classic.

More one-day success followed, at the Boels Rental Hills Classic, before she became the first Brit to win the Aviva Women’s Tour.

Controversy after three anti-doping whereabouts failures – the first of which was later scratched from her record, meaning she escaped a ban – halted her momentum, but after fifth place at the Olympic Games she came back strong to help Boels-Dolmans win world team time trial gold in her first race as Lizzie Deignan, following her marriage to Team Sky rider Philip.

2016 highlight: Deignan’s spring campaign was built around the Tour of Flanders, and the Yorkshirewoman delivered a great tactical to ride to win the cobbled Classic. Escaping with Emma Johansson on Oude Kwaremont, the Yorkshirewoman outsprinted the Swede to claim victory.

SPOTY history: Nominated in 2015, finished tenth.

Dame Sarah Storey

After British Cycling’s Olympians lit up the Rio 2016 Velodrome, Dame Sarah Storey picked up where they had left off when the Rio 2016 Paralympics began.

On the first night of track cycling, Storey, 38 and at her seventh Olympic Games, smashed her own world record in the C5 3,000m individual pursuit heats before claiming the 12^th Paralympic gold medal of her career – becoming Britain’s most-decorated female Paralympian in the process.

She won two more, winning both the C5 time trial and C4-5 road race, before the Games were up to take her career tally to 25 Paralympic medals, 14 of which have been gold.

Like the woman she overtook in the all-time ranking – Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson – Dame Sarah has become synonymous with the Paralympic Games and disability sport during a phenomenal career as first a swimmer and then a cyclist.

2016 highlight: The velodrome had been home to plenty of British success at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, and Dame Sarah ensured the tone was set for more success to follow at the Paralympics on the opening night. Having smashed her own world record in qualifying, Storey then went on to win her 12^th Paralympic gold medal – more than any other British woman before her.

SPOTY history: Nominated in 2012, finished 12^th.

Odds: 150/1

Kadeena Cox

Kadeena Cox’s Paralympic success was not limited to her performances on the bike – the 25-year-old also won a medal of each colour on the athletics track too.

Coupled with her C4-5 500m time trial gold medal in the velodrome, Cox’s success in the T38 400m made her the first British para-athlete to win golds in multiple sports at the same Paralympic Games since Isabel Barr, 32 years earlier.

Cox’s story is the all the more remarkable when you consider she was only diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2014, after suffering two suspected strokes.

She entered her first British National Track Championships on the bike in September 2015, and within 11 months was a Paralympic champion – and world record holder after stopping the clock in 34.598 seconds.

2016 highlight: Already a bronze medallist on the athletics track, Cox went into the C4-5 500m time trial on the bike as world champion and with the ringing endorsement of Dame Sarah Storey. And she coped with the expectation perfectly, storming to victory in world record time to ensure she became the first Brit to win Paralympic medals in different sports at the same Games since Barr in 1988. In winning gold on the athletics track later in the Games, Cox matched shooter/sprinter/athlete Barr’s 1984 achievement of golds in two different sports at the same Games.

SPOTY history: No previous nominations

Sir Bradley Wiggins

Sir Bradley Wiggins won his eighth Olympic medal – more than any Brit has ever previously managed – at Rio 2016, as the British men’s quartet stormed to team pursuit gold.

It crowned a great comeback to the track for Wiggins, as he lined up with Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Owain Doull to beat the world record twice on their way to victory.

In a thrilling final, the quartet came from behind with just two laps remaining to beat Australia and set a new world record of 3.50.265.

Having smashed the UCI Hour Record in 2015, Wiggins’ record-breaking eighth Olympic medal marked another high point in a brilliant career on track and road.

And – having started the year by winning Madison gold with Mark Cavedish at the UCI Track World Championships – he wasn’t done there as the two paired up to win the prestigious Ghent Six Day.

Wiggins and Cavendish’s victory in Ghent made the former only the second Brit, after Tony Doyle, to twice win the event.

2016 highlight: Wiggins’ return to the track had been one of the big talking points as the Rio 2016 Games approached, with the team pursuit team seemingly reinvigorated by the presence of the seven-time Olympic medallist. And the 36-year-old’s eighth Olympic medal, a British record, is the perfect way to sign off his career.

SPOTY history: Nominated in 2008 and 2012, Wiggins was the most recent cyclist to top the poll when he won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award four years ago.

Odds: 200/1

Becky James

Becky James won two silver medals at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, but that doesn’t even tell half the story of her triumph against the odds.

The Welsh star had the world at her feet in 2013 when she won two gold medals at the UCI Track World Championships but a knee injury kept her off the bike for the best part of the next two years, and James also suffered a cervical cancer scare in that time.

She returned to training just 12 months out from Rio but made quick progress, winning keirin bronze earlier this year at the UCI Road World Championships.

And in Rio, the 24-year-old Abergavenny ace went on to claim her first two Olympic medals, to reaffirm her place as Britain’s next female sprinting star on the track.

2016 highlight: Though she was ultimately narrowly beaten to gold by Germany’s Kristina Vogel, James run through to the final of the individual sprint at Rio 2016 was a reminder of why she was revered as the natural replacement for Victoria Pendleton post-London 2012.

SPOTY history: No previous nominations