This is the 2nd time a joint tournament has been held since the breakup of darts in 1994.
The last time also happened in Holland in the International Darts League in Nijmegen in May. That time the BDO players came out on top with 3 out of 4 in the Semis and Gary Anderson picked up the title.
There is another joint tournament scheduled to be held in September in the UK the Grand Slam of Darts which will be shown on ITV. The first time they have shown darts in many years.
Previous winners of the WDT are:
Tony David, Raymond van Barneveld (2), Gary Robson and Phil Taylor. Taylor won the tournament last year when it stopped being exclusively for BDO players and 5 PDC players received wild cards.
The politics in darts seems to be hitting a new high again even though these joint tournaments are taking place. The BDO players are not happy their old exclusive tournaments are being taken over by PDC players (the WDT and the IDL).
And also the BDO has purposely moved it's BBC tournament the Masters to clash with Barry Hearn's PDC ran joint tournament (the Grand Salm of Darts) in September.
Martin Adams the current BDO World Champion refused his invite to the GSOD. Hearn went on record to say that Adams lacked ambition. To which Adams replied he is loyal to the BDO and that is a great quality and said that without him the tournament has lost it's value.
I think for 'Joe Public' having 2 live tournaments on at the same time will probably alienate people from the sport and confuse them but for the darts fans it is interesting times to watch and compare the 2 codes.
Who will come out on top at the WDT this week we can only wait and see. So far we are 3 matches in and it stands 2-1 to the BDO.
Mieke de Boer will not be taking part as there is no ladies tournament in the WDT. But she is often showed as a interested member in the audience by SBS6 TV . I wonder why?
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