European champion among the 10 contenders for the 2014 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award

Jo Pavey has been included on the shortlist for the 2014 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.

The 41-year-old has been named as one of 10 contenders for the honour, with the winner to be announced on December 14 after a public vote. The last winner of the award from the sport of athletics was Kelly Holmes in 2004.

Pavey only returned to the track in May having had her second child in September 2013, but she went on to battle to a brilliant bronze over 5000m at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow before gaining a gutsy gold over double the distance at the European Championships in Zurich.

Her performance in Switzerland saw Pavey become the oldest ever female European champion.

Pavey’s inclusion on the BBC SPOTY shortlist follows her winning the British Athletics Writers Association’s Cliff Temple Award for female athlete of the year.

The BBC shortlist, which was put together by a 12-member panel, also features the likes of F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, Paralympic skier Kelly Gallagher and her guide Charlotte Evans, golfer Rory McIlroy and footballer Gareth Bale.

Former Olympic heptathlon champion Denise Lewis and Paralympian Tanni-Grey Thompson both feature on this year’s panel.

Tennis star Andy Murray won last year’s award, while Jessica Ennis-Hill finished as runner-up in 2012, the same year in which Usain Bolt was named BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year for the third time.

The overseas honour is one of six other awards up for grabs next month, with Team of the Year, Coach of the Year, Young Sports Personality of the Year, Helen Rollason Award and Sports Unsung Hero also to be decided.

Seb Coe, Daley Thompson, Fatima Whitbread and Paula Radcliffe are other athletics stars to have claimed the top honour in the past.

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