While Bradley Wiggins remains odds-on favourite with the bookies to win the revamped BBC Sports Personality of the Year award on December 16 there are growing concerns within the cycling fraternity that he and other two-wheeled contenders such as Sir Chris Hoy, Laura Trott and Victoria Pendleton may suffer in the wake of the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

While there is absolutely no suggestion that Tour de France winner and Olympic gold medallist Wiggins or any of Britain's Olympic cycling stars have ever had anything to do with drugs, the fear is that theirs has become an indelibly tainted sport and that the public vote will be adversely affected by the revelations.

We are assured that all Team GB Olympic cyclists and those with Team Sky are clean as the proverbial whistle.

But after what we have learned from the Armstrong revelations can anyone be blamed for wondering if in the past any cyclist who has achieved glory may have done so with more than a little help from the dodgy side of sports medicine?

No doubt the majority haven't. But can we be sure? Is giving a cyclist the accolade taking too big a risk?

Probably not, which makes Daley Thompson's call for cycling to be driven from the Olympics quite hypocritical. Coming from a sport which bred Ben Johnson and a host of other druggies too numerous to mention, some close to his homeland here, he must be having a laugh.

"Armstrong is a cheating b***** and his sport is warped and damaged by drugs," he roars.

No argument there.

But can't the same be said for athletics, or weightlifting? Are they to be expelled too?

"The International Cycling Union (UCI) are not fit for purpose...the International Olympic Committee (IOC) must demand that this disgraceful governing body put its house in order," says Thompson

Now that we agree with.

The actions of Armstrong, now stripped of his seven Tour victories (but not yet his Olympic bronze), and the truly incompetent and shamefully intransigent UCI, have scarred cycling irrevocably at a time when interest and participation in it has never been greater.

That's the real tragedy.

Has the Lance Armstrong doping scandal tarnished Bradley Wiggins' chance of claiming the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award?

Now there seems a good chance that the disgraced and discredited Armstrong and those who rode with him could affect the outcome Britain's most prestigious sports award, which would be a shame, even though Wiggins would not be my choice for an entirely different reason, which I will come to later.

One SPOTY controversy that certainly will be avoided this year is that which hit the 2011 award, when not a single woman was shortlisted by an all-male panel.

Not only has the shortlist been extended from 10 to 12, but the 12-strong panel which will decide on it includes half-a-dozen females and is headed by ex-gymnast Barbara Slater, the director of BBC Sport (she's the daughter of an Olympian, too – the former Wolves and England footballer Bill Slater who represented Team GB at the Helsinki 1952 Games).

Other redoubtable women on the panel are Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Denise Lewis, broadcaster Eleanor Oldroyd, sports journalist Sue Mott and UK Sport chair Baroness Sue Campbell.

They will sit alongside Sir Steve Redgrave, BBC's head of sport Philip Barnie, programme editor Carl Doran, and the sports editors of The Sun, The Observer and The Daily Mail – all male, by the way. Fleet Street hasn't stepped through this particular glass ceiling just yet.

So will a woman win? Unlikely, according to William Hill, who now put Andy Murray second favourite ahead of Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis. But coming up fast on the rails is wheelchair wizard David Weir although fellow Paralympian Ellie Simmonds, who makes the fact that she is a Paralympian secondary to her success and who oozes personality – the commodity the award nominally represents – remains a 66-1 outsider.

Similarly, the delightful Nicola Adams (100-1), who so changed the views about women's boxing among the more chauvinistic of my ringside colleagues that the Boxing Writers' Club last week gave her a special award at the hitherto men-only annual dinner.

Nicola Adams, the first woman to win an Olympic boxing gold medal, is 100-1 odds to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award

Nicola would be my choice over Wiggins, Farah or Ennis. She's a joyous bundle of fistic fun, her smile, her fortitude and her achievement exactly epitomise what the award should represent in a year unsurpassed for sporting endeavour.

Actually, we are unprecedentedly spoiled for choice. You can even make out a case for nominating Seb Coe as the prime architect of the most stupendous sports event ever to be held in Britain. Without him running the show, it would not have happened as superbly as it did. No question.

Or Clare Balding, the undoubted small screen star of the Games – and just about every other event she has fronted. At least she she will co-host SPOTY alongside Sue Barker and Gary Lineker. Good choice.

Or how about the now-retired Frankel, the world's number one racehorse, unbeaten in 14 races and whose performance in the 2000 Guineas has been described as "one of the greatest displays on a British racecourse".

In any other year Andy Murray surely would be a shoo-in after winning an historic US Open title and reaching the Wimbledon final but this has to be the year of the Olympian.

Yes, I know Murray did win an Olympic gold medal too but that defining word "personality" comes into play again in my book, coupled with charisma and public affection.

Olympic gold medallist Andy Murray is second favourite according to William Hill

My preference for these annual polls has always been the one organised by the Sports Journalists Association which gives us the opportunity to vote separately for male and female candidates.

The BBC did consider switching to this format but decided against it. Pity.

The "12 for 2012" will be selected by the expert panel, says Barbara Slater, then face a public vote on the night of December 16, with the winner chosen by telephone poll before a paying audience of more than 15,000 at London's ExCeL, appropriately an Olympics venue.

The panel will also select the winners of the International Sports Personality of the Year (might as well hand that to Usain Bolt now); Coach of the Year; and Team of the Year, which could be a close contest between the European Ryder Cup golfers, and cycling's Olympic squad and Team Sky, which helped Wiggins to become the first British winner of the Tour de France.

Just as long as Lance Armstrong doesn't put a spoke in Wiggo's wheel of fortune.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.