Trout

iTrader: (1)

Sid Waddell was defending it strongly as a sport...indeed it was going to be a demonstration sport at the next Olympics

It has subsequently been cancelled after the players discovered that there would be no pies being served in the Olympic Village, only salads, nut loaf, real fresh tuna steak and pasta. They didn't want any of that soft muck

Gav

How can anyone say Darts isn't a sport?!! Like Senior AP has pointed out, your comparing a pub level game with a Professional level game!! Opposite ends of the spectrum! Could all you people on here saying it's a game hold a 95-100 3 dart average over a period of 4 hours?? no you cant, it takes an unbelieveable amount of skill, mental ability, physical ability, self belief, dedication and most of all practice to do.

Being a professional sportsman myself i know what it takes. The practice for 8 hours a day, to groove yourself so you can trust your ability at your time of need. In the case of darts, to hit a double to close out a leg, set or a match takes great inner belief and trust. Darts is a sport because to be the best you have to work hard, go the extra mile that others wont, like Phil Taylor does. He practices 8 hours a day, could you stand there throwing for 8 hours a day and your arm not hurt?? I seriously doubt it!! Darts is one of the hardest sports in the world to be good at (to a professional level) and they deserve more credit than they get IMO.

Gav..

pauly

iTrader: (1)

it's a pub game or past time
same as pool, snooker, skittles,
is ten pin bowling a sport? could you hold a 270 -280 average over say 5 games?
sod it lets call penny up the wall a sport shall we, coz if i practiced long enough i could be the best in the world at it!!
how many other sports have most of its proffesional participants classed as clinically obese?(if not then they cant be far off the fat bastids)
nobody is saying there is no dedication to the cause, but if you enjoy playin playstation and spend 8 hours a day for 5 years playing it to become the best in the world does this then become a sport?
utter b0ll**

davyboy

I'm sorry that is just complete tosh, although thanks for making me laugh.

PMSL reminds me of the old bloke in the pub on the fast show, "darts, yeeeah, hardest game in the world that is, been doing it 25 years man and boy"

Gav

I said "one" on the hardest to be good at!! To play at a professional level you have to average above 85 for three darts and be able to hit maybe 3 different numbers with trebles and finish on a double. NOT easy!!! I agree there is harder sports though

gav..

pauly

iTrader: (1)

davyboy

Phew - you ought to see those Quake 4 champions, 10 hours a day they practise.

30 frags per game minimum, even aginst top player.

pauly

iTrader: (1)

playstation is definately a sport

pauly

iTrader: (1)

how exactly?

Yet for all the blaring music and bright lights as the players walk on stage, it is not as rock’n’rollers that they want to be seen but “proper” sportsmen and women. They believe darts should be in the Olympic Games, alongside archery and shooting. In Britain, though, it is not even formally recognised as a sport

richiewong

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showpost....3&postcount=90

davyboy

How about conkers?

There is a world championship every year in Northamptonshire. It's played by in serveral countries, and enjoyed by millions.

....or Twister?

TelBoy

Of course darts isn't a sport. I've played sport to a high level, and i played darts competitively for about two years, ten years ago or so. And there's simply no comparison. Sure, darts takes a degree of stamina if you're playing long matches, but that's hardly physical exertion - the very essence of a "sport". Just because some self-interested committee has deemed it a sport doesn't mean it is. For me the only marginal activity is golf, but overall i still think that has to be classified as a game, not a sport, for the same physical exertion reasons.

Scrappy9

Darts is definately a sport, in fact it is the major part of my 2006 keep fit campaign.

Now rally driving, how can that be a sport, sitting down all the while, heater on listening to radio 2 = Easy life.

davyboy

Can I ask what you are a professional in?

Dave

Gav

I'm a golf pro Daveyboy

TelBoy, you obviously have no idea about golf and the physical side of it. Again your probably comparing the lazy club golfer to a professional. No comparison. I will admit golf is 80% mental and 20% physical but it is still a physical game. To swing a club at 100mph and beyond takes strength and supplenes!! And to deliver that face square at 100mph and hit it straight take a lot of skill!! Golf has the highest recognised sportsman in the world and also the highest earning sportsman in the world, Tiger Woods ($50 million last year alone). He's taken golf to a complete new level in fitness, he's an athlete. I could go on about golf fitness all day and how it is a sport!!!!

Gav..

TelBoy

Sure, he HAS taken it to a new level, by using sport (ie fitness training) to become good at a game. Same with snooker players - the top blokes do a lot of training so that they can maintain their level of play for longer.

But that doesn't change the fact that in their own right, darts, golf and snooker are games at the end of the day. They have to be classified somehow of course, so "sport" is the obvious label, but they're not, not in the true sense of the word, however much you might like to tell people you're a sportsman!! You're good at a game, not a sport.

Gav

I dont brag that i'm a sportsman atall. Not that kind of person

Sorry but you cant possibly put golf in the same group a darts and snooker, thats just rediculous. You have to walk about 3-4 miles round a golf course for a start!!! And it's a hell of a lot more physical, but your entitled to your opinion TelBoy as we all are. Mine just differs to yours

gav..

TelBoy

But i don't think you can have a balanced opinion unless you've done all three for any length of time. Save for the nuances, to the casual observer, walking round a golf course swinging a club, walking round a snooker table potting a few *****, or standing at the oche throwing a few darts is in essence the same level of exertion, whichever way you look at it.

A good example of the game/sport paradox in my opinion is table tennis. At its simplest level, "ping pong" is just a harmless passtime. But it CAN be taken to a level which fully justifies its classification as a sport - whereas darts, snooker and golf simply can't in the same sense - not unless they start insisting on running between tees, doing bench-presses between frames or a quick relay race between sets!!

Gav

I totally agree with table tennis

If your thinking about a casual round of golf then the physical side is not much (as i said it's about 20% physical). But i'm thinking more on a professional level where the pysical exertions are needed, mentally and physically IMO You dont have to be running to make anything a sport, it's more about skill.

Gav..

TelBoy

Ah, but IS it?! Is chess a sport then..?!!

Senior_AP

No, as it does not require any physical skill or endurance/exertion at all - only mental ability. Darts requires all of the aforementioned.

Stephen Hawking could play chess, however he could not play darts.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...#Target_sports

Gav

OK OK OK chess is'nt a sport, no way. That is skill all the way and no physical aspect atall ( unless you call moving the pieces physical ).

I'm simply saying it's not all physical to be a sport, it's about skill too. Please dont say golf is as physical as bloody chess

gav..

Gav

Here you go TelBoy SPEED GOLF

TelBoy

Oh come on AP, don't bring physical incapacity into it to try and make a distinction!! ANYONE can play golf, darts or snooker - admittedly not very well perhaps, because it doesn't involve any "exertion" much futher than standing upright, something that the majority of people can do! But not everybody can raise their heart rate to say 40bpm above resting for more than 15 minutes at a time - and trust me, no golfer, snooker player or darts player has EVER done that (whilst playing their respective games, at least)!! It's *degrees* of exertion i accept, and defining that point isn't easy, but again, to the majority of people, golf, darts and snooker are games!! And you know it!!

davyboy

So what about conkers then, surely that takes as much physical exertion as darts?

Robbie T

iTrader: (8)

Golf, the best way to spoil a good walk

Gav

Only if your **** at it

darts_aint_sport

Darts players are very skilled at what they do, no doubt about it, it's a difficult game to master. They walk in to an arena like a boxer, chains and rings all over, with Firestarter playing in the background, and loads of chavvy people in the arena watching it, with the tv cameras focussed on the players wives screaming at their husbands more than the players, it must be tough.

Fat and/or lazy people just want to consider it a sport so that they can claim to be sportsmen.

TelBoy

LOL, but it *is* cracking entertainment, and great fun to play.


But somebody needs to have a word with many of the top players. Bobby George in particular, and surprisingly even people like Martin Adams look more chavvy than the chavviest scum on chavscum.com - either they embrace the image or haven't got the mental capacity to realise quite how appalling they look!!

Leslie

Since it relies on your personal motor skills, hand and eye coordination, and to a certain extent, endurance, I certainly class it as a sport.

Les