Just Stop Oil protest stops play at World Snooker Championship 2023

The World Snooker Championship was disrupted after a Just Stop Oil protester climbed onto a table and emptied orange powder over it. 

During the first frame of Mondays match between Robert Milkins and Joe Perry a Just Stop Oil protester was able to climb onto the table and pour orange powder over it. A second protester attempted to glue herself to the table where Mark Allen and Fan Zhengyi were playing but was stopped by referee Olivier Marteel. Both protesters were arrested by South Yorkshire Police. 

Allen and Fan resumed after a 40 minute delay but Milkins and Perry will resume play at 19:00 tonight. Allen said “I think I was the last person in the whole arena to work out what was going on because I was focused on the shot I was about to play. I heard a bang, that I thought it was on the other table and then I turned round and there was a woman on my table. It could have been a lot worse - you saw what happened on the other table and how much disruption it caused. It was a surreal moment but I feel like even talking about it is giving them airtime they don't deserve because they are just idiots. What are they trying to gain from what they have done? I am sure there are better ways to get their point across.”

The protest comes only two days after animal rights activists were able to enter the Grand National track and attempted to chain themselves to fences before being arrested by police resulting in a 15 minute delay to the start of the race. Sandy Thomson who trained Hill Sixteen said the delay caused by the protesters was the reason the horse fell at the first fence and was put down after breaking its neck.