Excluded: Dame Rebecca

The British Broadcasting Corporation has added women to the list of groups who will not be allowed to win Sports Personality of the Year.

It has long been known that the BBC award show is biased against anyone from an aquatic discipline, but the exclusion of all women from this year’s shortlist is a new development that has taken many by surprise.

Among those female swimmers to miss out was Dame Rebecca Adlington, who this year became world champion, to add to her two Olympic golds. Keri-Anne Payne, another world championship gold medallist and the first British competitor in any sport to qualify for London 2012, also failed to be selected for the final ten.

The corporation has come under particular criticism for allowing journalists from teenage boy magazines Zoo and Nuts to submit their own shortlists. Such is the strength of feeling that some have already called for female sporting stars to boycott this year’s event.

However, a spokesperson for Zoo categorically denied the magazine was biased against female swimmers, stating: ‘We regularly feature numerous ladies either wearing, or at least having just taken off, some sort of swimming costume and / or bikini and, furthermore, we have not advocated domestic violence against women in nearly 18 months.’

Mixed teams: Winner takes it all

Mixed relays could be part of the World Aquatics Championships after a FINA Technical Swimming Committee report recommended they be added to the schedule in time for the 2013 championships in Barcelona.

Relays teams including both male and female swimmers are a regular feature in domestic and masters competitions, but only very rarely feature at elite international level and never at the Olympics or World Championships.

In 2007, Australian Libby Trickett broke the 100m freestyle world record when swimming the first leg of a 4 x 100m freestyle mixed relay against the US at a Duel in the Pool event. However, the record was never ratified as mixed relays were not officially recognised at the time.

A spokesperson for FINA said it was already ‘very common’ for male and female competitors to jointly take part in activities while at swimming competitions, but that this ‘usually’ did not take place in the pool and was ‘seldom’ subject to official timekeeping.