World road race champion and Tour de France green jersey winner Mark Cavendish has been voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
The 26-year-old is only the second road cyclist to win the award after Tommy Simpson claimed the prize in 1965.
Cavendish could be Britain's first medallist of the London Olympics in the road race on the opening Saturday.
Golfer Darren Clarke, who triumphed at the Open, was second with world 5,000m champion athlete Mo Farah third.
Cavendish won five stages of this year's Tour de France - including the final time trial in Paris - to clinch the green jersey awarded to the race's best sprinter for the first time.
The Manxman followed that success by confirming Britain's emergence as a major nation in road and well as track cycling by taking gold at the world championships in Copenhagen in September.
He was awarded an MBE in November for his services to cycling and won the Sports Journalists' Association sportsman of the year award in December.
Cavendish had 15 stage wins to his name prior to this year's Tour, but had yet to finish the gruelling event at the top of the sprint standings.
However, a dominant performance at the head of his team's HTC train in the the sprint stages and a stubborn refusal to slip too far off the peloton through the French mountains ensured he wore the green from the 11th stage through to the Champs-Elysees.
Supported by a Great Britain team that contained the likes of Bradley Wiggins, David Millar and Geraint Thomas, Cavendish then burst to victory in Denmark to become the first British winner of the world title in 46 years.
"They were the two hardest goals I could possibly set myself in the year, but I had some great guys around me," he said.
Cavendish's five stage wins at the 2011 Tour de France moved him to sixth on the all-time list on 20 behind legendary Belgian Eddie Merckx, who has 34.
"I'm not chasing records, but I have collected an average of five a year so it is definitely doable if things carry on as they have been," he said.
In the night's other awards England's cricket team were named Team of the Year, with their coach Andy Flower winning the Coach of the Year award.
World number one tennis player Novak Djokovic, winner of three of the year's four Grand Slams, won the Overseas Sports Personality of the Year, while teenage golfer Lauren Taylor scooped the Young Sports Personality award.
Athletics coaches Janice Eaglesham and Ian Mirfin won the BBC Sports Unsung Hero award.
Former rower Sir Steve Redgrave won the Lifetime Achievement award, while Bob Champion was handed the Helen Rollason Award.
CAVENDISH'S 2011
Giro d'Italia - Two stage wins
Tour de France - Five stage wins
Tour of Britain - Two stage wins
World Championship road race winner