World Darts Trophy

The Bullit World Darts Trophy was a darts tournament held each September at De Vechtsebanen in Utrecht, Netherlands between 2002 and 2007. The tournament has a playing format comparable with the two World Championships - BDO World Darts Championship and PDC World Darts Championship.

Tournament history

First held in 2002, the tournament was played under the World Darts Federation, British Darts Organisation and the NDB (Nederlandse Darts Bond - the Dutch governing body of darts) and predominantly featured players from those organisations.

However, for the first time PDC players were invited to the event in 2006. Phil Taylor, Colin Lloyd, Ronnie Baxter, Peter Manley and Raymond van Barneveld all joined the top ranked players from the BDO. In 2007, the WDT included the top 12 players in the PDC Order of Merit and four PDC Qualifiers. That meant that there were 16 PDC players at the 2007 WDT and 12 from the BDO with another 4 wildcards. The BDO had an agreement with the organisers of the WDT through to 2010 to allow their top players to compete in this event. [ [http://www.planetdarts.tv/page/LatestDetail/0,,10180~995810,00.html Agreement on increasing PDC players] ] . However the tournament's short history ended abruptly when the PDC decided not to send any players to the event to the two Dutch events in 2008.

End of event

Towards the end of 2007, Barry Hearn announced that PDC players would not be competing in the 2008 IDL and WDT events which threw the events into doubt. SBS6 also announced they would not broadcast the event. The tournament promoters filed a lawsuit against the PDC and SBS6 claiming a contract had been agreed for the PDC players to be involved. The case ended in failure on 21 February 2008 and the International Darts League was indefinitely postponed. [ [http://www.starsofdarts.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10285&st=80&start=80 IDL & WDT go to court] Superstars of darts forum ] Both events were confirmed defunct by the failure of an appeal on April 29, 2008. [ [http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=navclient&hl=en&u=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eintdartsleague%2enl%2f IDL & WDT end] Google translation from official web site]

2007 event

The 2007 World Darts Trophy was staged between August 31 and September 9. Gary Anderson took the title with victory over Phil Taylor.

ponsors

*Bavaria (Premium Dutch Beer brand) 2004-2006 [www.bavaria.com] http://www.bavaria.com
*Bullit (Energy Drink) 2007-

Television coverage

The tournament has been broadcast by SBS-6 in the Netherlands, but it has not been broadcast in the UK.

Prize fund

*2007 Prize money:Winner €45,000:Runner-Up €22,500:Semi Finalists €11,250:Quarter Finalists €6,000:Last 16 €3,000:First Round Losers €2,000:Nine dart finish: Alfa Romeo Brera 2.4 JTDM 20V worth €50,000:Highest Check-Out €1,000:Total €221,000

Final Results and statistics

Men's Finals

Women's Finals

2002 Mieke de Boer beat Crissy Howat (now Crissy Manley) 3-1 (sets) 2003 Trina Gulliver beat Francis Hoenselaar 3-1 (sets) 2004 Francis Hoenselaar beat Anastasia Dobromyslova 3-1 (sets) 2005 Karin Krappen beat Francis Hoenselaar 3-1 (sets) 2006 Women's tournament discontinued

Junior WDT Finals

2006 Ron Meulenkamp beat Sven van Dun 6-1 (legs)

References

* [http://www.worlddartstrophy.nl/index.php?s=p_2 Official web site]