After Paul O’Donovan’s exclusion from the shortlist for RTE’s Sports Personality of the Year created controversy on Friday, it emerged yesterday that he has been nominated for the “team of the year” award, alongside Fintan McCarthy, with whom he won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, writes Denis Walsh.
The shortlist of nine nominees for the team award was announced yesterday. The Limerick hurlers, Galway camogie team, Leinster Rugby and Shamrock Rovers are among those nominated.
O’Donovan won the team of the year award alongside his brother Gary in 2016 after they took silver at the Rio Olympics. O’Donovan and McCarthy were also nominated in 2019, for their gold medal at that year’s world championships.
This year’s shortlist for Sports Personality of the Year includes footballer Vikki Wall, hurler Cian Lynch, Paralympians Ellen Keane and Jason Smyth, boxers Katie Taylor and Kellie Harrington, jockey Rachael Blackmore and golfer Leona Maguire. The blind Paralympian cyclist Katie-George Dunlevy and her pilot Eve McCrystal are in the team category this year.
All of the shortlists are selected by RTE while the winners are selected by a panel that includes RTE Sport staff and reporters from national newspapers.
