Big stink over farts at darts

Players set more than just their arrows flying at the Grand Slam of Darts this week, with opponents arguing over who had emitted noxious smells during their match.

Twice world champion Scotsman Gary Anderson, 47, won Saturday’s match 10-2 to reach the quarterfinals but his Dutch opponent Wesley Harms, 34, said he was affected by the ‘‘fragrant smell’’ Anderson had left as they played.

‘‘It’ll take me two nights to lose this smell from my nose,’’ Harms told a Dutch television station.

However, world No 4 Anderson said the smell had come ‘‘from the table side’’ at the Aldersley Leisure Village venue, in Wolverhampton, suggesting it was from the crowd.

‘‘If the boy thinks I’ve farted he’s 1010 per cent wrong. I had a bad stomach once on stage before and admitted it. So I’m not going to lie about farting on stage,’’ he was quoted as saying by the BBC.

‘‘Every time I walked past, there was a waft of rotten eggs so that’s why I was thinking it was him. It was bad. It was a stink, then he started to play better and I thought he must have needed to get some wind out.

‘‘If somebody has done that they need to see a doctor. Seemingly he says it was me but I would admit it.’’

PDC chairman Barry Hearn, who has helped transform a sport which now attracts sell-out crowds, told the BBC the controversy was ‘‘unique’’ in his experience of professional darts.

‘‘It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of such a contentious – almost contagious – incident,’’ he said. ‘‘Something doesn’t smell right. There is nothing worse than a silent fart.

‘‘On a slightly more serious note, this is a top-level competition involving highly skilled sportsmen – so we have no intention of renaming the event the ‘Grand Slam of Farts’ as some have suggested.’’