Manchester United's Mary Earps leads the running for BBC Sports Personality of the Year - full list of nominees

The nominees for this year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year award have been announced. The ceremony is being held at the BBC studios at MediaCity in Salford next Tuesday (December 19).

And ahead of the show, they have this morning (Tuesday, December 12) announced that those in contention for the prestigious gong are:

Manchester United and Lionesses goalkeeper Mary Earps is currently the bookmakers' runaway favourite to succeed team-mate Beth Mead in taking the award.

The 30-year-old helped England reach the Women’s World Cup final back in August before eventually losing out 1-0 to winners Spain in the final. Earps was awarded the Golden Glove by keeping three clean sheets throughout the tournament.

She was also named England Women's player of the year, came fifth in the voting for the 2023 Ballon d’Or Feminin award – the highest-ever ranking for a goalkeeper – and kept a Women’s Super League record 14 clean sheets for United last season.

She is joined on the shortlist by retired cricketer Stuart Broad, former jockey Frankie Dettori, heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson, wheelchair tennis player Alfie Hewett and golfer Rory McIlroy.

Broad will be aiming to become the first cricketer to win the award since Ben Stokes in 2019.

He became England’s second leading Test wicket-taker with 604 before announcing his retirement on the penultimate day of the fifth and final Ashes Test. He helped them draw the series against Australia at the Oval by taking a wicket with his final ball bowled and hitting a six off the last ball he faced.

Liverpool-born Johnson-Thompson came back from injury to win her second world title in Budapest this year.

Her build-up to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics was undermined by an Achilles injury which