Stuart Bingham calls for referee Olivier Marteel to be honoured after tackling protester at World Snooker Championship
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Published 20/04/2023 at 17:35 GMT
Olivier Marteel was able to wrestle a protester away from the table at the World Snooker Championship and 2020 Masters Champion Stuart Bingham has called for the Belgian referee to be honoured after his selfless act amid the chaos. Meanwhile, another man was able to climb on to the table during the match between Robert Milkins and Joe Perry and covering it in orange powder in a separate protest.
'It's a calling!' - Snooker referee Olivier Marteel on nursing, snooker and the Power of Dedication
Stuart Bingham has added to the calls for snooker referee Olivier Marteel to be honoured for his bravery after wrestling a Just Stop Oil protester away from the table at the World Snooker Championship.
Mark Allen was in first-round action against Fan Zhengyi on Monday when a woman attempted to clamber onto the baize, but Marteel was able to thwart the protestor.
Another protester got on the other table and threw orange powder across it, disrupting play for the evening.
Posting on Twitter, former world champion Bingham said: “I can't believe nothing has been done so far for @BelgianProRef1 for his quick thinking and bravery the other night with the protester.
“Without him and what he done, there wouldn't have been any snooker that night.
“Hats off to @wst [World Snooker Tour] for getting the tournament back on schedule but the right thing to do is to reward or honour Olivier's bravery.”
Marteel leads an interesting life away from snooker and works as a radiology nurse in his native Belgium.
Speaking on Eurosport's The Power of Sport show, he revealed his anguish at not being able to do the thing he loves due to the Covid-19 pandemic before being able to return and referee last year’s World Championship final.
"I missed two World Championships because of Covid, which for me was like am arm or a leg cut off,” he explained.
"It's like a kid who has received gifts and toys and suddenly for more than a year, doesn't receive anything anymore.
"Then suddenly you take a kid to a toy shop, you open that door and the eyes of the kid light up! You know you're going to be the man in the middle from a qualifier on day one up to the world final, which is the pinnacle and you can't get any higher than that.
“There are billions of people in the world and you are one of those chosen to ref at the Crucible, at the mecca of sport of snooker. It can't get any better than that.”
Marteel also played a key role in his country’s efforts to fight the pandemic and revealed how he helped run a second A&E to cope with the overwhelming demand for health services.
"I usually had days off for the World Championship, but then I couldn't travel anymore because of lockdown everywhere, so I contacted my head nurse and said 'I'm home, I can't go to the World Championship, is there anything in the hospital I could do? He said ‘yeah, we're going to open a second A&E at the other side of the hospital, especially for Covid, so we need staffing. He asked if I'd mind and I said 'of course not, it's my job, it's my calling and I'm there to help people.'”
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