Given the outstanding achievements by Belfast's world champion boxer Carl Frampton during 2016, it is extraordinary that he failed to make the final 16 for the BBC sports personality of the year award.
Frampton took the WBA featherweight title by beating the previously undefeated Leo Santa Cruz in New York last July, having previous unified the IBF and WBA super-bantemweight crowns with victory over Scott Quigg in Manchester five months earlier.
There are undoubtedly some brilliant performers on the shortlist for the coveted annual trophy, as well as some lesser known figures, but it is very curious to find the all-conquering Frampton relegated to the status of an also-ran.
If, as has been suggested, his exclusion was influenced by the BBC's lack of contractual access to international boxing events, it was a decision which looks even harder to justify.
