The 2015 Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) World Darts Championship started this weekend in Alexandra Palace in London; it is due to finish on the 4th of January and Stephen Bunting only has one wish-to become the undisputed Darts champion of the world and win his double crown.
Bunting, "The Bullet" received a world title less than two weeks ago at the British Darts Organisation (BDO) 2014 World Championship at Frimley Green, the Lakeside Country Club in Surrey, England. He hopes to win the PDC as well and achieve both world titles at one time, something that no player achieved before.
The BDO was founded in 1973 and it comprises 66 member countries. The BDO World Championships, held at the Lakeside, are the biggest BDO tournaments.
The PDC was established in 1992 in the UK when a "rebel" group of leading professional darts players split from the BDO. Since 1993 the PDO and the BDO have staged their own versions of the World Championships, and, since the split, there has been a debate amongst darts followers as to which tournament is the most prestigious.
The PDC World Darts Championships have been hosted by Alexandra Palace, a historic entertainment venue in north London, originally open in 1873 and nicknamed "The People's Palace" or "Ally Pally". The PDC events are covered by Sky Sport; they use a specially developed "flight cams" which could show the trajectory of the dart through the air in slow motion.
The 29 year-old Liverpudlian, who started playing darts at the age of 12, and accepted a PDC score card in January this year, will play either Robert Marijanovic or Jermaine Wattimena in the first round on Tuesday.
In his second tournament as a PDC player, he won a UK open qualifier in Wigan earlier this year. He has not looked back since, and has had a fantastic year.
He had a great run to the semi-finals of the World Grand Prix, in October and the quarter-finals at the European Championships and the Grand Slam of Darts.
Although describing the year as a "whirlwind, and a dream come true" the "Bullet" admits that the completion is hard and that he would need to raise his game and achieve results between 95 to 100.
And, while hoping for the 2015 PDC finals on the 4th of January in the Alexandra Place, if that happens, he will miss the BDO World Championship when it starts at Lakeside on the 3rd January. Let's hope for the double crown on the 4th in Ally Pally then.
