The PDC World Championship is the pinnacle of darts and every arrowsmith dreams of Alexandra Palace glory. It’s a tremendous achievement to lift the iconic Sid Waddell Memorial Trophy, but with World Championship success comes increased demands and that has led to the emergence of the curse of the champion. Read our look at the fortunes of past Champions.
PDC World Championship: The Curse of The Sid Waddell Trophy
Luke Humphries arrived back at Alexandra Palace to defend his World Championship crown last season, but Cool Hand Luke was unable to hold onto the trophy. The Newbury thrower was beaten by Peter Wright in round four of the Ally Pally extravaganza, as Humphries became the ninth successive champion unable to retain the title. In fact, It’s five years since a defending champion even managed to go past the quarter-finals and we take a look at the factors which may contribute to the curse of the champion.
PDC World Championship: Increased demands
Michael van Gerwen, Rob Cross, Peter Wright, Gerwen Price, Michael Smith, Humphries and Luke Littler are the last seven world champions, with Wright and Van Gerwen claiming two titles in the last nine years. All of those top-level arrowsmiths will be well accustomed to playing in World Series and Premier League competitions, but those invitational events add to a busy schedule.
Competing week after week in the Premier League and traveling all over the globe in the World Series comes in combination with increased media coverage and sponsorship demands. Perhaps the uniting of all those factors leaves practice and preparation compromised.
PDC World Championship: Competitive Sport
Phil Taylor won 14 PDC world titles in an astonishing career and, while there were challengers to the Power in the past, the overall standard of the sport has risen considerably in recent years. There are now a whole host of potential world champions, not least 18-year-old Littler and there are a huge number of players, who on their peak form, can trouble the sport’s elite performers.
Take the major PDC events last season, Stephen Bunting won the Masters, Dimitri van den Bergh was successful in the UK Open, Humphries took down the World Matchplay crown and there were breakout successes for Mike de Decker at the World Grand Prix and Ritchie Edhouse in the European Championship. Van den Bergh, De Decker and Edhouse aren’t even ranked among the top 16 players on the PDC Order of Merit and that demonstrates how competitive darts has become.
PDC World Championship: Diminishing desire
Former world champions Smith, Gary Anderson, Cross and Price have all had periods where it appeared that darts wasn’t their top priority and the desire to practice, play all over Europe and compete in ranking boosting low-key events has to be difficult to maintain.
Clearly, winning the World Championship is the culmination of years of hard work and reaching the pinnacle of darts is an achievement which deserves to be celebrated. However, enjoying the finer things in life and skipping the gruelling practice sessions is not a recipe for success and form can’t simply be switched on and off.
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