UK Darts Issue 16 - July 2014 | Page 20

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