A 'Just Stop Oil' protestor has halted play at the world snooker championship, after he climbed onto a table and scattered a bag of orange powder over the green cloth surface.
The BBC reports another tried to glue herself to a table, after emerging from the audience at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, with referee Olivier Marteel intervening.
Play between England's Robert Milkens and Joe Perry was suspended, while the game between Northern Ireland's Mark Allen and China's Fan Zhengyi continued, after a 40-minute delay, when cleaners were brought in.
World Snooker Tour says the vandalised table will be reclothed overnight and the match rescheduled.
"This is the Crucible," it tweeted. "The show will go on."
Sky Sports television says a 30-year-old man and 52-year-old woman have been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.
Just Stop Oil tweeted a video clip of the incident with the caption "NEW OIL AND GAS WILL SNOOKER US".
The footage showed a man in a white T-shirt with 'Just Stop Oil' leaping onto the table during the match and pulling out a bag containing the powder, before being dragged away.
"I have never seen that before at a snooker event," said seven-time world champion and BBC pundit Stephen Hendry. "It's a first.
"For me, straight away as a snooker player, I am thinking: 'Is the table recoverable?' We don't know what that is on the table."
Just Stop Oil wants Britain to end all new oil and gas projects, and has staged protests including activists throwing soup over Vincent van Gogh's painting 'Sunflowers' at London's National Gallery last October.
Activists also ran onto the track after an opening-lap crash at last July's British Formula One Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Reuters
