CHAZ Davies has laughed off criticism of his BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year victory.
Despite being the first Welshman to become a world champion in international road racing, Davies was still on the receiving end of sour grapes from Welsh hurdler Dai Greene, who hit out at his success.
The Presteigne rider was not at the Swansea awards ceremony, but kept up to date with the event via the internet and appeared over a video link.
Davies’ mum, Sam, accepted the award which is voted on by the public, while Cardiff athlete Greene failed to even get into the top three.
Greene said: “Part of me feels a little bothered I perhaps did not get the recognition I perhaps deserved.
“I am probably biased towards my sport, but I think if you win a gold medal on the world stage you have good credentials.”
However Greene failed to acknowledge Davies was also top of his field, after winning the World Supersport championship in 2011.
Davies said: “I was up against a boxer and World Champion athletes, and with the Olympic Games in London next year I expected the vote to be in favour of one of them
“The vote was a public call in so somewhere there are a lot of motorcycling fans and supporters. It will really help bring bike racing a little more into the lime-light and can only be good for the sport in the whole of the UK.
“There were a few knockers afterwards who of course were questioning why their favourite football or rugby player didn’t win. It made for funny reading on Twitter, there were a lot of ‘Who’s Chaz Davies?’ tweets. I got a great kick out of that.”
Mother Sam was less forgiving of the unsporting reaction of some of the other contenders.
She said: “Dai Greene's coach said he was flabbergasted that he did not win but it's a public vote and if they didn't vote for him they didn't vote for him.”