David Weir’s latest column in the Evening Standard. 23 December 2011

BBC Sports Personality of the Year takes place in Salford tonight but I won’t be going.

I’ve been for a few years and got an invite again but turned it down. It’s just a bit too close to Christmas for me and I’m busy focusing on training with next year in mind.

I’ll probably switch it on to see who wins. I’d like to see Mark Cavendish get the award. He’s a great sportsman but, on top of that, he seems like a nice fella with it. He comes across as a normal guy that likes his sport and just gets on with it.

I think, though, one of the golfers will win it, probably Rory McIlroy.

It’s frustrating that there are no disabled athletes on the shortlist - it shouldn’t be the case that we need 2012 to change people’s perspective on Paralympic sport.

I’d need all day to tell you the people from Paralympic sport who deserve to be on that list - there are so many of them at the top of their sport.

But it’s not just the lack of disabled sportsmen and women on the list but also the fact there are no women and, how the Brownlee brothers didn’t make the 10 with how they dominated triathlon this season is actually quite scary.

Instead on Thursday, I’ll be training after having out a few days out because of illness. I first got a dry cough and sore throat on Friday and, come Monday, I couldn’t even talk - I’d completely lost my voice.

My coach Jenny told me to take a few days off training to shake it off rather than push myself and stay ill for longer so I’ve done that and I was back in training again on Wednesday.

Being ill gave me the time to watch Carl Froch’s fight against Andre Ward at the weekend. I was a little bit disappointed with Froch’s performance - I thought he was going to be better than that.

Ward seemed to work him out straight away and it was like Froch had no plan B and was looking around as if to say “what do I do now?”

You always need a plan B to be able to change things instantly, the same goes for my races. I might have a race plan but, if I get boxed in or whatever, I have to change that quickly - you need an instant reaction and I didn’t see that in the ring from Froch.

I love my boxing. I grew up in a boxing-mad family. My dad always had mates around to watch the big fights and my brothers boxed when they were younger.

I’ll be spending some time with my family over Christmas. Emily, Mason and I will head over to Emily’s mum on Christmas morning to open all our presents and then I’ll take them and my daughter Ronie over to my mum’s on Boxing Day for more presents.

There’s a big gift under the tree with my name on it from Emily and I’ve no idea what it is. I’ve got to admit that, even at my age, I get excited like a kid about Christmas.

If it had been left to me, I probably would have left my Christmas shopping until the day before but thankfully Emily’s so organised and we had most of it sorted back in October.

There’s no training for me on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day so I’ll be able to have a few glasses of champagne at home with Emily on New Year’s Eve to celebrate 2012.

From the moment next year begins, it’s going to get hectic. It’ll be the Olympic year and it’ll go very fast.

I’m off to Australia for most of January based in Sydney mostly where I’ll do two track events and one road race - the Oz Day 10k - as well as training in some warmer weather.

It’s not the end of the world if I don’t win those races. I’m so competitive that I know I’ll be disappointed if I don’t win but it’s all about the bigger picture later in 2012 now.

Follow David Weir on Twitter @davidweir2012