Andy Murray crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year after Wimbledon ...

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As the shortest-odds winner in the accolade's 60-year history, it was no surprise to bookies who had made the tennis superstar virtually unbackable

Winner in absence: Gary Lineker speaks to Judy Murray during the 2013 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards

Andy Murray was visited by doping control officers 10 minutes before he set off to collect his OBE from Prince William at Buckingham Palace.

But there were no drug testers lurking backstage with specimen bottles when Murray was crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

As the shortest-odds winner in the accolade's 60-year history, it was no surprise to bookies who had made Britain's first Wimbledon men's singles champion in 77 years virtually unbackable.

When the phone lines and online voting opened at 9.05pm, Murray was an average 25-1 on to become the first tennis player to win the award since Greg Rusedski reached the US Open final in 1997.

The public, captivated by his capture of a sporting holy grail, readily forgave Murray for being 4,340 miles away from the First Direct Arena in Leeds and unable to receive the trophy in person from Sir Alex Ferguson and last year's winner Sir Bradley Wiggins.

We should be grateful an elite athlete remains so in thrall to his coach, Ivan Lendl, that he refused to break camp, and his preparations for next month's Australian Open, to let a 12,000 audience fawn all over him.

Putting the day job on hold to become the BBC's ally in prime-time ratings wars has not always been a smart career move for SPOTY winners.

Eight years ago, Freddie Flintoff stayed up until 2am in Lahore, hours before a one-day international against Pakistan, to receive his award from fellow all-round legend Ian Botham. He was out for a third-ball duck and England were soundly beaten.

But whether Murray was in Miami or on the moon, rarely has the Oscar among sporting opinion polls been so readily identifiable as a moment in time.

Cast your mind back to the first weekend in July. Twelve months earlier, Murray had lost to Roger Federer in the final.

This time, on a steaming hot Sunday afternoon, he was not going to be denied.

In three sets of rabid tension on court and near-hyperventilation in the heatwave cooking Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic refused to yield an inch, but Murray - bold, brilliant, braveheart Murray - simply refused to yield at all.

When Fred Perry left the meter running in 1936, no one envisaged it would be such a long time before Britain could celebrate another men's singles winner.

'For a couple of weeks and months afterwards, I found it quite hard to come to terms with being a Wimbledon champion,' Murray admitted 'I hope I was able to make people proud.'