Jump to content

World Professional Darts Championship

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The World Professional Darts Championship is one of the most important tournaments in the darts calendar. Originally held as an annual event between 1978 and 1993, players then broke off into two separate organisations after a controversial split in the game. Each organisation, the British Darts Organisation (BDO) and the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) then arranged their own World Championships, the former in January the latter in December. As a result, there was no longer a unified world champion in the sport for nearly three decades.

The BDO version dated back to 1978, when it was held at the Heart of the Midlands nightclub, Nottingham. The following year it moved to the Jollees Cabaret Club, Stoke, where it stayed until 1985. From then until 2019 it was held at the Lakeside Leisure Complex at Frimley Green, Surrey. In 2020 the tournament was held at The O2 Arena in London. The BDO went into liquidation in 2020 and the World Darts Federation announced later that they would be creating their own version of a World Championship, returning to the Lakeside Leisure Complex. [1] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, their version didn't get underway until 2022.[2] Since qualification for the BDO version was always based on WDF rankings, most of the player pool and legacy of this new version of the World Championship is based on the old BDO system.

The PDC version has been running since 1994 after "the split", with a field of players containing all active previous World Champions from the BDO. It was originally staged at Purfleet's Circus Tavern, Essex, before moving to its current home Alexandra Palace, London, for the 2008 World Championship.

Men's winners

[edit]
Englishman Phil Taylor has won a record sixteen World Championships.

By player

[edit]

The following sortable table lists all winners of both versions of the World Championship (correct as of 5 January 2024).

Player Total BDO PDC
England Phil Taylor 16 2 14
Netherlands Raymond van Barneveld 5 4 1
England Eric Bristow 5 5
England Martin Adams 3 3
England John Lowe 3 3
Netherlands Michael van Gerwen 3 3
Canada John Part 3 1 2
England Glen Durrant 3 3
Scotland Gary Anderson 2 2
Scotland Peter Wright 2 2
England Ted Hankey 2 2
England Adrian Lewis 2 2
England Dennis Priestley 2 1 1
England Scott Waites 2 2
Scotland Jocky Wilson 2 2
England Bob Anderson 1 1
England Steve Beaton 1 1
England Stephen Bunting 1 1
Wales Richie Burnett 1 1
England Rob Cross 1 1
Australia Tony David 1 1
England Keith Deller 1 1
England Andy Fordham 1 1
Netherlands Christian Kist 1 1
Netherlands Jelle Klaasen 1 1
England Scott Mitchell 1 1
Wales Gerwyn Price 1 1
Wales Leighton Rees 1 1
England Michael Smith 1 1
Scotland Les Wallace 1 1
England John Walton 1 1
Wales Wayne Warren 1 1
Wales Mark Webster 1 1
England Luke Humphries 1 1

By country

[edit]

The following sortable table lists all winners of both versions of the World Championship (correct as of 20 February 2024).

Player Total BDO PDC
 England 47 28 19
 Netherlands 10 6 4
 Scotland 7 3 4
 Wales 5 4 1
 Canada 3 1 2
 Australia 1 1

Highest average progression

[edit]
Average Seed Player Score Opponent Stage Year
97.49 3 Wales Leighton Rees 6–3 Wales Alan Evans QF 1978
99.00 5 England John Lowe 2–0 England Tony Brown 1st 1984
100.29 unseeded England Keith Deller 2–4 England John Lowe QF 1985
100.80 unseeded England Phil Taylor 5–0 England Cliff Lazarenko SF 1990
102.63 1 England Dennis Priestley 3–0 Scotland Jocky Wilson 1st 1993
103.98 1 England Phil Taylor 6–0 England Dennis Priestley F 1998
105.03 3 England Phil Taylor 3–0 England Reg Harding 1st 1999
105.87 2 England Phil Taylor 6–0 England Alan Warriner QF 2000
107.46 2 England Phil Taylor 7–0 Canada John Part F 2001
111.21 2 England Phil Taylor 6–1 England Shayne Burgess 2nd 2002
114.05 1 Netherlands Michael van Gerwen 6–2 Netherlands Raymond van Barneveld SF 2017

Women's winners

[edit]
Englishwoman Trina Gulliver has won a record ten World Championships.

By player

[edit]

The following sortable table lists all winners of all versions of the World Championship (correct as of 10 December 2023).

Player Total WDF

(BDO)

PDC
England Trina Gulliver 10 10
England Lisa Ashton 4 4
Russia Anastasia Dobromyslova 3 3
Japan Mikuru Suzuki 2 2
England Beau Greaves 2 2
Netherlands Francis Hoenselaar 1 1
United States Stacy Bromberg 1 1

By country

[edit]

The following sortable table lists all winners of all versions of the World Championship (correct as of 10 December 2023).

Player Total WDF

(BDO)

PDC
 England 16 16
 Russia 3 3
 Japan 2 2
 Netherlands 1 1
 United States 1 1

Youth winners

[edit]

The British Darts Organisation scores are sets, while the Professional Darts Corporation scores are legs.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Darts is Coming Home! Lakeside World Championship 2022". DartsWDF. World Darts Federation. 6 June 2021.
  2. ^ "Lakeside WDF World Championships 2022 - Rescheduled". World Darts Federation. 15 December 2021. Retrieved 15 December 2021.