Many of the WDF’s finest headed over to Antwerp over the weekend as the annual Belgium Open Darts Festival took centre stage.
Clearly, it’s not just luggage that gets lost when travelling abroad these days. Darts Connect also failed to find its way to the Flemish city. With its uglier cousin, Darts Atlas, apparently on annual leave, it fell upon the WDF Facebook page to keep me updated.
Now, I’ve been critical of this organisation in the past. I’m still not convinced by some of the recent tournament location changes, and whoever designs their graphics is about as good at it as a walrus would be at ice-skating. But credit where it’s due. The winners and images were uploaded promptly – albeit not from the actual events they were competing in. Clearly photographers still aren’t part of the budget.
Right, shall we crack on?
Two main events – the Antwerp Open on Saturday and the Belgium Open on Sunday. Nice, simple and logical tournament names. Box well and truly ticked.
Usually at WDF weekends there are doubles, triples, cricket and probably even bobsleighing thrown into the schedule somewhere. For simplicity’s sake, I’m just looking at the Men’s, Women’s, Boys’ and Girls’ champions.
I refuse to refer to them as “Open” winners. Aside from the fact I’d have to type “the Belgium Open Open winner”, which looks ridiculous, I’m of the old-school view that the gender-specific titles were perfectly clear. To quote the great Alan Partridge: “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Have a quick check downstairs, work out which boat you belong in and start rowing. That last bit was me, not Alan.
Starting with the youth winners from Antwerp, Jason Goossens claimed the Boys’ title with victory over fellow Belgian Oden Ollevier in the final. The youngster with the Anatidae family member-sounding surname impressed at last month’s Europe Youth Cup in Ireland and continued that form here, swanning to another title. Best I could do!
It was also a youth double for the waffle-loving nation as Silva Vanhee, according to the WDF Facebook page, defeated two Dutch girls en route to the title.
“The 17-year-old beat a pair of Dutch internationals to win the Girls crown, defeating both Kimberly Kersbergen and Phoebe Vermeulen 4-2.”
I think they meant semi-final and final, but perhaps their content writer had swapped jobs with the graphics designer for a few minutes. Bless.Dutch-born Jaimy van den Weerd, who now competes under the German flag, defeated Paul Krohne in the Men’s final, meaning he overcame a fellow adopted countryman to lift the title.
In the Ladies’ event, ace Finnish flinger Kirsi Viinikainen was about to have one hell of a weekend. First, she dispatched the talented Aileen de Graaf to claim the Antwerp Open crown. Then, 24 hours later, she went and did exactly the same thing again to add the Belgium Open title to her collection. I say exactly – De Graaf did manage to pinch a leg the second time around – but this weekend belonged to the magnificent Kirsi, who “finished” her off twice.
Onto Sunday and Belgium Open Day.
It’s not often Paige Pauling travels to a darts tournament and returns empty-handed. Think of her as a young Deta Hedman. Although, I’m sure she won’t mind me saying this – and neither will her loyal partner Paul – she’s got a few more air miles on the clock than the teenage sensation.
Anyway, once again Paige had to squeeze another trophy into her suitcase – or, in this case, bizarrely a jar of sweets, which I doubt even made it onto the plane. No expense spared. Just a quick trip to whatever Belgians call Sweets R Us for the silverware.
Then another future star, Mason Teese, got in on the act. He brushed off the disappointment of a semi-final exit 24 hours earlier to claim what I can only imagine was an out-of-date Easter egg, courtesy of victory over Northern Ireland’s Jacob Todd. Perhaps he gave Jacob the Snickers from inside. Who knows? However, Mason is a good kid so like to think he shared.
Finally, Paul Krohne, beaten in Saturday’s final, made amends with a stunning 5-0 whitewash of Jerry Hendriks – son of the famous guitar player. Well, that’s funnier than saying his dad’s an accountant or something similar.
There you go. Another great weekend of darts, with prizes that have probably either been eaten or melted long before everyone reached the airport.
