Daily Telegraph football correspondent Henry Winter has been named as Britain's top sports journalist in a Press Gazette poll.
Press Gazette magazine has this month named the top 50 sports specialists in British journalism after conducting a survey of the public and leading sports journalists.
Winter beat back competition from Daily Mail columnist Martin Samuel, who was in second place overall, and the Mail on Sunday's Patrick Collins, who was third.
In addition to being the overall victor, Winter was selected as the nation's best sports journalist by his peers. BBC sports presenter Gary Lineker won the public vote.
Winter told Press Gazette: "The two top sport journalists for me are Paul Hayward and Martin Samuel. Just to be mentioned ont he same list as them is a delight."
Ten sports journalists contributing to The Times newspaper were included in the Press Gazette top 50, making it the news outlet with the most nominations.
The Times was also selected by journalists as the most highly rated publication, website or broadcast news outlet for sports journalism. The public selected the BBC as its preferred source of sport news.
The Times, the Daily Mail and The Guardian each had two reporters in the overall top ten. For the Mail it was Samuel and fellow columnist Charles Sales, who was tenth overall.
For The Times, chief football writer Patrick Barclay was placed sixth overall while chief cricket correspondent Michael Atherton was placed eighth.
Paul Hayward, who works as a senior sports writer for The Guardian, as well as The Observer and Guardian.co.uk, claimed position number four while his colleague David Conn was fifth overall.
The top 50 was compiled following a survey of senior journalists working in the field of sports journalism and an opinion poll conducted by iCD research of 1,000 members of the public. Journalists and the general public were specifically asked to name the sports reporters they rate most highly.
The full list of top 50 sport reporters appears in the July edition of Press Gazette magazine.
Top ten sports reporters
1. Henry Winter – Daily Telegraph football correspondent
2. Martin Samuel – Daily Mail columnist
3. Patrick Collins – Mail on Sunday columnist
4. Paul Hayward – Observer chief sports writer
5. David Conn – Guardian sports writer
6. Patrick Barclay – Times chief football writer
7. Oliver Holt – Daily Mirror sports columnist
8. Michael Atherton – Times chief cricket correspondent
9. Stephen Jones – Sunday Times rugby correspondent
10. Charles Sale – Daily Mail columnist
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
