BBC One

Image source, PA Media

SPOTY’s Lifetime Achievement award winner Mark Cavendish, speaking to BBC One: “That was an amazing reception.

“I don’t really know, I knew I was getting it, but I don’t know what to say. I am not very good at public speaking and that’s why I rode a bike for a living.

“I have always been a sports fan and sport has an incredible ability to inspire, whether you want to compete, or do it for fun, or do it as a family.

“You can do what you want with sport. I don’t really watch cycling I watch everything else.

“If you look back in those years with Covid and when sport started it got everyone happy again. It is nice that we celebrate it every year with SPOTY.

“As a nation of GB we are such a strong nation in the world of sport.

“I know having represented the country and when you pull on the union flag it is a massive honour.”