Top 10 moments of 2022/23 snooker season: No. 2 – Referee Olivier Marteel halts protester amid World Championship chaos

The 2022/23 snooker season was another remarkable campaign with a smorgasbord of unforgettable memories bewitching millions across the globe on Eurosport, the home of snooker. We pick 10 of the most memorable moments from the past 10 months. Today we recall referee Olivier Marteel's reactions at the Crucible. Stream top snooker action live on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.com.

After the conclusion of another extraordinary snooker season, we pick 10 memorable moments from the 2022/23 campaign as captured by the Eurosport cameras. You can vote for your personal favourite when we reveal our final list of contenders later this month.

No. 2 – Break the night with colour in Crucible chaos

Olivier Marteel has become used to picking up snooker balls during a storied 17-year career as an elite referee on the main professional circuit, but you can never be sure what the next frame will bring.

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Being forced to lift a 'Just Stop Oil' activist off the old green baize was a new one for the man with the white gloves at the 47th World Championship in Sheffield.

The two-time world final referee – who also works as a radiology nurse in his native Belgium – was saluted for his courageous efforts in the front line of the global Covid-19 pandemic three years ago.

"It's my calling, I'm a nurse. I'm there to help people," Marteel told Eurosport.

'It's a calling!' - Snooker referee Olivier Marteel on nursing, snooker and the Power of Dedication

Video credit: TNT Sports

Little did Olivier know he would be in the eye of another storm decades after Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins battled officialdom when he walked out on the evening of Monday 17th April at the Crucible Theatre.

Just like confronting the pandemic, Marteel did not retreat in the face of further prospective danger when a woman attempted to superglue herself to table two during the tussle between Mark Allen and Fan Zhengyi in the first round.

Despite the security breach, Marteel's quick reactions halted the protestor as an unsuspecting Allen lined up a shot leading 6-3 in the first frame of their concluding session, preventing the certain curtailment of the evening's play in Sheffield.

“Without him and what he done, there wouldn't have been any snooker that night," said Stuart Bingham, the 2015 world champion.

“Hats off to World Snooker Tour for getting the tournament back on schedule, but the right thing to do is to reward or honour Olivier's bravery.”

Table one's match – involving 'The Gentleman' Joe Perry and 'The Milkman' Robert Milkins – was not so fortunate in escaping unscathed as a bloke managed to catapult himself onto the baize at breakneck speed, scattering orange powder paint across the surface area amid howls of derision from the crowd.

"It's an unprecedented incident," said Eurosport commentator David Hendon. "We've been coming to the Crucible since 1977, we've never seen anything like this before."

While Allen completed a 10-5 win over Fan, the protest forced the abandonment of the other match as Perry and Milkins resumed on Tuesday night with a fresh table cloth fitted before being played to a finish on Thursday morning.

"I heard a bang, that I thought it was on the other table. Then I turned round and there was a woman on my table," said Allen.

"It could have been a lot worse. You saw what happened on the other table, and how much disruption it caused."

MC Rob Walker helps clean the table after protest

Video credit: TNT Sports

Milkins somehow recovered a 7-2 deficit to complete a 10-9 win, but their four-day encounter will always be remembered for the chaotic scenes of breaking the night with colour amid the traditional Crucible break-building.

"I was a little bit shaken up. It wasn't a very nice experience," said Perry. "But it didn't have any impact on the match."

The reaction of Marteel was key in minimising the damage done to the sport's major event after protesters also delayed the Grand National at Aintree this year.

The World Championship is a tournament he clearly cherishes as much as his role as a referee.

“There are billions of people in the world and you are one of those chosen to ref at the Crucible, at the Mecca of the sport of snooker," he said.

"It can't get any better than that."

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Stream top snooker action live on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.com

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