Published: 30 March, 2013
by RICHARD OSLEY

REMEMBER last summer, the perfect summer, London’s glorious Olympic summer?

It’s becoming a hazy memory already, but think hard and you can still hear the BBC theme music.

Remember: We had that great opening ceremony (let’s not mention the closing ceremony) and won loads of gold medals and there were gold post-boxes for the winners to post letters in and Britain was brilliant and it didn’t matter that nobody could get a ticket and we all agreed to love Clare Balding for ever and it never rained and everybody looked sexy and the city’s car exhausts smelt like fresh jasmine and Danny Zuko got together with Sandy and it was all just perfect.

Well, back then, last summer, every time somebody won a gold medal, Gary Lineker would turn to the cameras and his eyes would bulge with excitement. Like clockwork, he and other BBC sports presenters, would say: “Sports Personality of the Year is going to be a cracker this year… it’s gonna take a week to get through it.”

As if that had been the ultimate goal of our Olympians and Paralympians from the start, as if their original masterplan had been: 1. Win gold 2. Get a knighthood 3. Advertise Shredded Wheat but most importantly 4. Win Sports Personality of the Year.

Yet we’ve had a football season in which English teams ducked the Champions League.

There’s been a dawning realisation that we only care about rowing and swimming once every four years. We’ve had Tom Daley’s Splash! gameshow. And now two days of a dismal French Open this week in which the Brits have bombed on the clay. Lineker should now be frank with us.

He should turn to the cameras, perhaps put on that stern face he made when Gazza got booked in Italia ‘90, and say it: Sports Personality of the Year is not going to be a cracker this year.

Stay in school kids. Don’t gamble but if you stray into a bookmaker’s den this week you’ll see the current betting on the 2013 Sports Personality of the Year and it should shake us all.

Chris Froome is second favourite at around 7-1 on the expectation that he’ll win the Tour de France. Alastair Cook is 8-1. Jessica Ennis is around tens and Ronnie O’Sullivan 16-1.

After that, you are looking at David Beckham (20-1) for retiring well and Gareth Bale (20-1) for qualifying for the Europa League. They are slim pickings.

But who is leading the market ahead of Froome, the current favourite among the number rollers? Andy Murray, at 2-1.

The guy’s bad back has meant he’s not even playing in arguably the most thrilling Grand Slam event this week in Paris. It shows how much we are all banking on our ONE tennis player to do something historic at Wimbledon.

What a shower. We are pinning our hopes on one guy, Muggles, and his tennis racquet.

The Olympic year was meant to be a gateway to neverending sporting success. Lord Coe said we “did it right”. Twelve months on, we are struggling badly to find heroes.