Professional dart players Gary Anderson and Wesley Harms have caused a stink by accusing each other of farting onstage.
Two-time world champ Anderson blew away Harms 10-2 to book a quarterfinal spot at the Grand Slam of Darts in the UK overnight.
In a post-match TV interview, Dutch thrower Harms, 34, claimed his Scottish rival was responsible for breaking wind on stage.
But world No. 4 Anderson, 47, hit back, suggesting it was Harms who left the unpleasant smell.
“It definitely came from table-side and it was eggs, rotten eggs, but not from me,” Anderson said.
“Every time I walked past there was a waft of rotten eggs so that’s why I was thinking it was him.
“It definitely wasn’t me. I thought he had a s*** and I went ‘That’s dirty’.
“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.”
Harms reckons he noticed a “fragrant smell” on the stage, which he believed to have been left by Anderson.
He let rip to Dutch TV channel RTL7, saying: “It’ll take me two nights to lose this smell from my nose. I didn’t know things like this can also happen within the PDC (Professional Darts Corporation.”
“If the boy thinks I’ve farted he’s 1010 per cent wrong. I swear on my children’s lives that it was not my fault,” he added.
“I had a bad stomach once on stage before and admitted it. So I’m not going to lie about farting on stage.”
Among the many dark arts darts players have tried over the years, breaking wind is the one that goes unnoticed to the TV cameras and punters.
And yet it has the devastating effect of distracting a rival as they are about to throw.
Anderson added: “One player did it quite a lot but I’m not going to say any names. Everyone will know who I’m talking about. But I was born with manners if I actually did that I’d go as far away as possible to the edge of the stage.”
Anderson, PDC king in 2015 and 2016, also revealed he “needs a new body” after struggling with a back problem.
“I have restricted movement in lifting my left arm and my back is still bad, it’s been a year now like that,” he said.
“I’ve trapped something in my neck. The biggest problem is my left arm, though.
“If I have a couple of weeks off, my back is then fine. If I have two weeks solid playing darts, I’m crippled again. It just must be the way I’m standing. I’ll struggle on.”
This article was originally published by The Sun and reproduced with permission
