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Sunday, January 03, 2021
Briefly shuddered, then world champion
Great Price avoids the drama of darts and applause
Gerwyn Price and Gary Anderson produced a scandal together two years ago, and both darts professionals have a deep dislike. The victory has to be sweeter for Price: the Welshman clearly wins and is the new world champion. To do this, you have to shake unnecessarily.
After eleven missed chances, the nervous Gerwyn Price came very close to the 25 kilogram World Cup trophy and then seized the twelfth opportunity for the biggest possible win. The former rugby bully from Wales has crowned his change of sport in London and is a world darts champion. The 35-year-old Welshman won the London final against Scotland’s Gary Anderson 7-3 to win a cash prize of £ 500,000 (about € 559,000).
“I have never felt so much pressure in my life,” said the winner with relief. For Price, winning the prestigious Sid Waddell Trophy is by far the greatest success of his career. Anderson missed his third world title after 2015 and 2016. “I had never been in a situation like this. It was difficult,” Price said in a first reaction about his 11 failed darts, with which the match threatened to capsize again.
For Price, his biggest dream as a professional athlete came true. Confetti was raining in the Alexandra Palace desert when the new champion kissed the trophy for the first time. In the rankings, the polarizer Price replaces the previous underwriting leader Michael van Gerwen. The Dutchman had topped the world rankings continuously since January 2014 and now has to give up first place after losing in the quarter-finals. Price not only won the biggest tournament in 2020, but he also won the most titles overall.
At the World Cup, he survived several critical situations such as the 3-2 victory against his compatriot Jamie Lewis or the narrow victories against the two Northern Irishmen Brendan Dolan (4-3) and Daryl Gurney (5-4). He played splendidly on Sunday night and left no doubt who will win the 2021 World Cup. “The Flying Scotsman” quickly fell behind in their fifth World Cup final. Price was at his best early on and in the meantime hit 80 percent of his shots in the double fields. The Welshman took a 4-1 lead and kept pushing with loud cheers.
“I’ll shut up, he will scream”
The experienced Anderson played no worse than on the impressive road to the final, but had to admit defeat to an outstanding opponent. Price even played eight perfect darts and just missed all nine darts by a hair. The confrontations between Anderson and Price tend to be a bit heated. The ever-calm Scotsman and the extremely impulsive Welshman clashed once in fall 2018 when Price cheered and provoked particularly hard in the Grand Slam final, then won his first major title at 4:13 p.m.
“Iceman” Price was later heavily fined and booed by fans for months because his partly chubby demeanor wasn’t particularly well received. Anderson, for his part, was upset again by this World Cup and berated his opponents if they took too long to shoot the arrows. Before the final, the Scotsman answered the question of what kind of final he expected: “I’ll shut up, him strong.”
It is not yet clear what the year of the darts 2021 will look like due to the crown. A schedule has not yet been released, many winter and spring tournaments will continue to take place without spectators. Until the next World Cup in London a year from now, it will be difficult to get Price off the top of the rankings. At van Gerwen he has a cushion of more than 270,000 pounds in the Order of Merit.
