The Lakeside World Championship
Great Scott it's our preview of the BDO World Championships!
Saturday sees the start of "the other" World Championships. The BDO version of the most prestigious title in darts follows hot on the heels of the epic PDC event that concluded less than a week ago with Phil Taylor convincingly beating Mighty Mike in what in the end was a fascinating final. The Power was of course BDO World Champion in 1990 and 1992 and Van Gerwen only mastering a last 32 place before they both eloped to the other side!Anyway let's get back to the future and consider who will be Champion in 2013? As ever there is a high quality field, the majority are from the UK, there is the usual strong Dutch contingent and of course the Norwegian player David.Rune.
Rune made quite an impact at the Winmau World Masters and both him and his sister who is also his coach (and is she his bodyguard too or was that job outsourced, I can't remember?) endeared themselves to darts fans by both wearing their hearts on their sleeves during David's run in the tournament. This run also included despatching Wolfie from the tournament!
Scott Waites is the bookies' favourite but despite his rightful reputation as one of the finest players the BDO have to offer, Lakeside has never really happened for him so far. His best efforts have been three quarter final appearances. Last year he made the last 16 before losing to The Count. His quarter of the draw (4th quarter) is arguably the toughest with the emphasis on arguably. He has potentially Ross Montgomery, along with one of my outsiders "The Viper" and Martin Atkins amongst others to overcome before he is even getting a sniff of the final!
On the other hand if Wolfie is going to relive his glory days then he has been handed a group (3rd quarter) that he probably fancies his chances of getting out of. Jan Dekker will have to improve dramatically from his last TV appearance. Gary Robson is a threat as is another great young Dutch player Jimmy Hendriks. Richie George will get a mention by some, but let's wait and see about that!
Stephen Bunting is the number one seed and deservedly so, he has been excellent and is of course current Winmau World Master. Wesley Harms is a threat for The Bullet in their quarter (Quarter 1) but Bunting will be confident of going through.
The final quarter (2nd) is why we emphasised the arguably about Scott Waites' quarter being the trickiest. Silverback is the top seed but this group also has last year's champion Kist in the mix too. Add: Robbie Green, Gary Stone, John Walton and outsiders but very good players Scott Mitchell and Mark Barilli too and this emphasises how tough this group is going to be. Steve Douglas makes up the balance of the party but he has suffered from some health problems so will be an unknown quantity to an extent, a fine player on his day though mind!
Viewing wise all tickets have sold out. There are some available on EBay and via ticket agencies. If anyone has any spare for this Sunday do please get in touch. The TV coverage is being split between BBC 1 and ESPN. According to the BDO site the BBC will be showing the afternoon action, the first semi final and exclusive coverage of the final. There will also be highlight programmes and online content from the BBC. ESPN will be showing the rest.
We will be tweeting score updates if you are out and about @dartscentre as well as a swift (metaphorical) clip around the ears to all the PDC fans who are suffering with a severe case of tunnel vision, each year forgetting where most of their PDC heroes started life. If they could set aside their prejudices they could, along with the rest of us, enjoy some high quality darts from a group of high quality players!
Let's Play Darts!