Then there’s the ever-emerging Far and South East
Asian talent emerging on the soft-tip (electronic
darts) circuit, which is now attracting the interest
of professional British players like reigning Lakeside
champion Stephen Bunting, who won two of these
events last year. The young Asian players will learn
from the professionals and raise their game.
“All sports have to go to the International Olympic
Committee. They alone decide what is and what
isn’t an Olympic sport.”
Adrian Bassett – British Olympic Association Director
of Communication
Unfortunately darts doesn’t quite yet meet the
IOC’s requirements for a sport to be given the title
‘Olympic’.
Photo: PDC/Lawrence Lustig
sports, archery and shooting, are in the Olympics
and that the player’s skills should be tested in that
environment.
It may also come as a shock to people who only
know darts as an English pub game to know that the
current professional world champion, Michael van
Gerwen, is Dutch – and he’s not the only non-British
world champion either.
Darts would also not become boringly predictable as
say table tennis, where China has won 24 of the 28
medals available since its Olympic inception in 1988,
and archery, where South Korea has won 19 of the 36
gold medals since 1972 when it became a permanent
Olympic event.
The darting international talent pool is now spread
far and wide, with players from: Australia, Belgium,
Austria, Sweden, Ireland, Finland, Germany,
Hong Kong and Spain all in the Professional Darts
Corporation’s (PDC) Order of Merit top 100 alongside
those from the UK.
A summer sport must be widely practiced on four
continents, spread over 75 countries. This is why
you’ll never see sumo wrestling in the Olympics.
Darts is played on enough continents (Europe, North
America, Asia and Oceania) but it’s currently lacking
in the quantity of nations with world class players.
There would also be a limit of one player per nation
like in other individual sports such as Judo o