Darts trailblazer Linda Duffy (formerly Batten) has called on PDC president Barry Hearn to introduce a new Women’s World Championship at Alexandra Palace instead of mixing genders
Barry Hearn has been told having female players at the PDC World Championship is “unfair” and a “publicity stunt”.
There are increasing opportunities for women in the PDC system following the introduction of Women’s World Matchplay and the Women’s Series. There are also reserved spots for female players at the Grand Slam and the World Championship.
However, there is no women’s World Championship in the PDC, must to the frustration of Linda Duffy (formerly Batten), the sport’s dominant female player in the 1980s. Now a psychology professor specialising in sport, she believes darts should be fully segregated by gender, like in the WDF, which runs the Lakeside World Championship.
While many insist male players do not have an advantage over females, Duffy, 70, disagrees, having conducted studies into the matter. She said: “It should definitely be split. There’s no way that men and women should have to play each other.
“I’m not saying they shouldn’t. If there’s an open category, everyone can play, whether you’re male, female, youth, senior. But why have categories if you’re not going to protect them?
“That’s why we have a youth category, to protect youth players so they can develop at their own pace. It’s the same with women. Women shouldn’t be expected to compete against men for a prize.
“The PDC don’t have a Women’s World Championship. I don’t know why. This is something I’ve said to Barry so many times. He’s got the women’s tour, which is very good, but where’s the women’s World Championship? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, to have women competing against men at Ally Pally is just a publicity stunt.
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“Fallon [Sherrock, who won two matches at the 2020 tournament] did really well the first time she went there. The PDC got a lot of publicity from it and so did Fallon. Good luck to her but you can’t have women in an event they’ve got no chance of winning. It’s not fair.”
On Hearn’s response to her pleas, Duffy added: “He just says there’s no physical difference in darts so if you can play, you should be able to play anywhere. He’s got an old-school, uninformed opinion on it.”
On what her research has told her, Duffy explained: “Men and women are different. They’re different in strength, they’re different in visuospatial skills (the ability to relate visual information to the space around you), they’re different in the way they perceive things, they’re different in attentional styles.
“Just because darts isn’t a particularly physical sport, the skills you need to become top-level are different between men and women. Look at the length of matches; men suffer muscle fatigue far less than women because they have bigger biceps, they have higher oxygen levels. In a long match, a man has an advantage.
“The other main thing is that men are much better at visuospatial skills, which is exactly a skill you need to throw darts. While it’s not like having a man and women box each other, there are differences that show men are better at playing darts. It’s not a level playing field.”
Three-time WDF women’s world champion Beau Greaves and Sherrock both recently failed to secure PDC Tour cards at Q-School. However, Greaves currently leads the second tier Challenge Tour which rewards the winner with a full PDC Tour card.
