Snooker world champion rocks up to press conference naked
He never thought he'd have to live up to such an outlandish promise, but a stunning triumph in the Snooker World Championship has seen Mark Williams front up to his winner's press conference in his birthday suit.
Williams, 43, had promised to bare it all for the media if he won the world championship — having failed to qualify for the 2017 event, and without a ranking event win since 2011.
But Williams now stands as the oldest world champion since Ray Reardon won it in 1978 as a 45-year-old, after holding off a fight-back from John Higgins at the Crucible to win 18-16, some 15 years after his last world title triumph.
Such was the seeming impossibility of the task of winning the world championship, Williams made the outlandish promise earlier in the tournament that he would rock up to his press conference naked as the day he was born.
True to his word, the new world champion strode into the media scrum, his cue stick concealed by little more than a sponsor's towel, as he pushed his way through a cheering press pack.
Once sat down at the corner of the table, he shed the towel, concealing the pink ball with strategically placed hands and table cloth.
"I'm a little bit uncomfortable at the moment. It's a bit cold in here!" the blushing Welshman said.
"But if I never win another tournament I won't care, I have done something I thought I'd never do."
Would there be a repeat of the fleshy antics if he defends his title in 2019?
"To be honest, if I win this next year, I'll do this again. I'll cartwheel round here naked," he said.
"I'm going to party the night away. Last time I won it I think I had half a pint of milk and went to bed. I'm not going to bed this time — it'll be daylight before I get to bed."
Thoughts of wife and children behind not retiring
Williams had considered retirement after his failure to qualify for the world championship last year, but he was persuaded by his wife to soldier on, with three young children to provide for.
"Last year I wasn't even here but in the caravan having a beer, having failed to qualify," he said.
"My game was crap and I was seriously thinking of giving up, but my wife Jo convinced me to carry on. I don't think she wanted me in the house 24 hours a day.
"So it is unbelievable to be winning this again 15 years after the last time."
The match-up between Williams and Higgins was a highly-billed clash between two of the three "Class of '92". The third member of snooker's Holy Trinity that went pro back then — the great Ronnie O'Sullivan — was in the crowd, watching on as the pair battled it out.
But Williams insisted, humbly, that he did not want to be compared to either of them, and was simply happy to have an unlikely win under his belt.
"I came along with them, I am not in the same league as Ronnie O'Sullivan or John Higgins, never have been," he said.
"I am proud of what I have achieved … but you can't class me as good as them."
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ABC .net
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