Rugby legend Sir Clive Woodward throws his weight behind campaign to get darts into the Olympic Games
Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Rugby World Cup winner Sir Clive Woodward's latest conversion is to join the bandwagon for darts to become an Olympic sport.
And the world's top two players, Michael van Gerwen and Gary Anderson, agree with him – because they are already subject to Olympic-standard drug testing and they want MORE dope tests to preserve the integrity of arrows.
Woodward was Team GB's sporting director at both the Beijing Games and London 2012, and he has seen enough technical excellence at the current PDC World Championship to add his influential voice to the oche's appeal as a venue for Olympic competition.
If subjective disciplines like tap-dancing horses and underwater line-dancing with clothes pegs on your nose can make the cut, a quantifiable contest like darts need have no inferiority complex.
It's a skill of hand-to-eye co-ordination and holding nerve under extreme pressure: archery without the bows and shooting without the guns.
(Photo: Getty)
Sir Clive, who presided over Jonny Wilkinson's historic drop goal for England in Sydney 14 years ago, tweeted:
“Again darts @SkySportsDarts just brilliant – this would be a brilliant Olympic sport, competition/pressure is sport at its best.
“Shooting/archery great @Olympics sports, darts can be played in 204 IOC countries, little costs, male/female of all ages, would be brilliant.”
Van Gerwen, who was smashing world records as Woodward tweeted his support, said: “It would be nice to wear Olympic gold, it would be great.
“At the moment we are too far away because the first rule of Olympic sports is that cannot have two associations or governing bodies, and for now darts is run by the PDC and the BDO.
“You never know what might happen in the future, and a gold medal would be nice – but it's not the same prize money as £350,000 for winning a world championship!
“I don't know what you would get for winning Olympic gold – maybe I would get a knighthood and they would call me Sir Michael.”
(Photo: Getty)
MVG would support more drug-testing in darts – not to bring it into line with other sports, but simply to increase standards of professionalism.
He said: “I've been tested maybe four times in the last year, but if I was tested every week I wouldn't mind.
“Maybe they test more in other sports, but they also get more scandals, so before they say things about us (being a proper sport) maybe they need to look at their own sports.
“I believe there are drugs which can help you stay calm under pressure but I have nothing to hide – what I achieve is based on ability and mental strength. Some people don't believe me, but all they have to do is contact the doping authorities and ask for my name.
(Photo: Getty)
“I think out-of-competition testing is the next step forward for professionalism in darts. We have come such a long way, we are trying to make it as good as possible and I believe in our sport.”
Anderson, who reached his fourth world championship final at the age of 46,
does not believe he will still be competing at the top level by the time darts is admitted to the Olympic fold.
But he said: “I think Sir Clive is right – and I reckon we would show a few people up.
“I don't think there is an Olympic venue that comes close to the atmosphere of competing on that stage at Ally Pally.
“Darts is like archery – you are trying to hit a target from 8ft away and the margin for error is a millimetre. We are drug-tested and I am all for that. If you play tiddlywinks for big money you should be drug-tested, and I think there should be more of it.
(Photo: Getty)
“Not to my knowledge have the drug testers turned up at my front door, but I'm a great believer that you should be prepared for a knock at the door 24/7 – and if anyone is caught out, that's their career ended.
“The next Olympics is in Japan, which would have been a brilliant place to introduce darts. We play out there in the World Series events now and you wonder how it will go, but they turn up in fancy dress and give it big licks.
“And when it's all over, they put all their rubbish in a bag, take it away with them and leave the place spotless – every country should learn from them.
“Sadly I think it might take at least another 10 years for darts to become an Olympic sport and I'll be 56 by then. But it wouldn't be too late for my son.”