Jonathan Rea takes a deserved 2nd place at SPOTY

Last week, Jonathan Rea took an impressive 2nd place at the 64th Sports Personality of the Year. It was slightly unexpected but thoroughly deserved as he’s had a brilliant year.

I’m not a huge bikes fan but even I know that Rea has been excellent and is probably the best British sportsman in motorsport at the moment. The Northern Irishman took a 3rd consecutive World Superbike championship this year with 16 wins and a record 24 podiums. Aside from a big crash at Donnington Park and getting caught up in an incident at Magny-Cours in France, where he retired from both of those races, he has finished on the podium in every single race. In other words, in every race he’s finished, he’s been on the podium. This is unbelievable.

It’s very similar to what Lewis Hamilton did in 2014 but Rea’s achievements are even better. He broke Colin Edwards’ 15-year record for the most number of points scored in a World Superbike season with a score of 556 points, 4 more than Edwards. Rea is super-consistent; his race speed is on another level and his racecraft is excellent. The 30-year-old is on top form. He’s in the best team (Kawasaki) but he’s making his teammate, Tom Sykes, look like a rookie. Sykes is a very experienced World Superbike champion himself, but he simply cannot match Rea.

To dominate like Rea is doing is very hard. To stay motivated and to not lose your form is something that Rea has no problem with, unlike other sportsmen. He told BBC Sport,

“to be called not 3rd but then 2nd was incredibly strange, it was a big surprise. There is going to be some phone bill in our little country tonight.”

He went on to say that he was proud for motorcycling and lost for words. It is a small surprise, but it just shows how big motorcycling is in Northern Ireland. It’s one of the biggest sports in the country and Rea is incredibly popular there. I’m so pleased to see him do so well and to see him get recognised.

Motorbikes aren’t massively popular in England, Scotland or Wales, so this will give Rea a huge public boost. I wanted to see him do better than Lewis Hamilton because he deserves to be rewarded because he’s given a lot back to his sport and his dominance is unprecedented in this modern era. He says that he’s going for 4 in a row. I can’t see anybody stopping him, so perhaps he might break even more records and we will see him in the top 3 of the Sports Personality of the Year again this time next year.