Mark Cavendish hits the front in BBC award race

Cavendish, who became the first British winner of the green jersey in the Tour de France after five stage victories, is priced at 4/11 with Ladbrokes to succeed last year’s winner, jockey Tony McCoy.

Golfer Darren Clarke, who won the Open in the summer, is a 5/1 shot, while 5,000 metres world champion Mo Farah is at 10/1. The other competitors on the all-male shortlist are: golfers Rory McIlroy (14/1) and Luke Donald (16/1), cricketers Alastair Cook (50/1) and Andrew Strauss (250/1), 400m hurdler Dai Greene (250/1), boxer Amir Khan (500/1) and tennis player Andy Murray (500/1).

Five-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Steve Redgrave will receive the lifetime achievement award. Already established as the most outstanding rower of all time after his victory in Atlanta in 1996, Redgrave announced the following year that he would carry on competing through to the Games in Sydney in 2000, where he won a fifth consecutive gold.

Since retiring from competitive sport, his Steve Redgrave Fund has raised more than £6 million for charity, and he played a key role in helping London win the bid to host the Olympics in 2012.

Previous winners of the award include David Beckham (2010), Seve Ballesteros (2009), Sir Bobby Charlton (2008), Sir Bobby Robson (2007), Bjorn Borg (2006), Pele (2005), Sir Ian Botham (2004), Martina Navratilova (2003), George Best (2002) and Sir Alex Ferguson (2001).

Presented by Sue Barker, Gary Lineker and Jake Humphrey, the show will be broadcast live tonight from BBC Sport’s new home at MediaCityUK in Salford. It will be screened live on BBC 1 from 8pm.