‘It’s a s*** time to have it, isn’t it?’ Darts star James Wade admits PDC World Championship ‘ruins Christmas’
JAMES WADE has admitted that his Christmas is “ruined” by the PDC World Championship.
The tournament is set to start at Ally Pally on Sunday and will run until January 3.
Wade, 41, has made 20 appearances at the competition and played on past the Xmas break 13 times.
The darts star has reached the semi-final stage on four occasions.
This means that the current world No.16 has spent 13 Christmas days travelling back to London after the break.
Wade has insisted that while the tournament works well as a business model it is “not so great” for the players and workers.
He told Sky Sports: “I enjoy it – ish. It’s just Christmas though, isn’t it? Yeah. I don’t want to be playing darts at Christmas.
“I want to be at home. Yeah, it kind of ruins Christmas. You’re robbed of Christmas.
“I’ve got young children now so I actually do like Christmas.
“I genuinely do like it. I love seeing their little faces and their little eyes light up.
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“But yeah, it’s a kind of a s*** time to have it, isn’t it? But it’s obvious why we have it because Christmas is a great time to capture an audience.
“It’s a great business model and it’s a great idea, and it works really well, but it’s not so great for people that have to work around it.”
Darts World Championship full draw
Second round draw (seeded vs first-round winner)
- Luke Humphries vs Thibault Tricole or Joe Comito
- Raymond van Barneveld vs Nick Kenny or Stowe Buntz
- James Wade vs Jermaine Wattimena or Stefan Bellmont
- Peter Wright vs Wesley Plaisier or Ryusei Azemoto
- Stephen Bunting vs Alan Soutar or Kai Gotthardt
- Dirk van Duijvenbode vs Madars Ramza or Christian Kist
- Damon Heta vs Connor Scutt or Ben Robb
- Mike De Decker vs Luke Woodhouse or Lourence Ilagan
- Luke Littler vs Ryan Meikle or Fallon Sherrock
- Ritchie Edhouse vs Ian White or Sandro Eric Sosing
- Danny Noppert vs Ryan Joyce or Darius Labanauskas
- Ryan Searle vs Mensur Suljovic or Matt Campbell
- Rob Cross vs Scott Williams or Niko Springer
- Gian van Veen vs Ricardo Pietreczko or Xiaochen Zong
- Nathan Aspinall vs Cameron Menzies or Leonard Gates
- Andrew Gilding vs Martin Lukeman or Nitin Kumar
- Michael Smith vs Kevin Doets or Noa-Lynn van Leuven
- Krzysztof Ratajski vs Richard Veenstra or Alexis Toylo
- Chris Dobey vs Stephen Burton or Alexander Merkx
- Josh Rock vs Karel Sedlacek or Rhys Griffin
- Jonny Clayton vs Mickey Mansell or Tomoya Goto
- Daryl Gurney vs Florian Hempel or Jeffrey de Zwaan
- Gerwyn Price vs Kim Huybrechts or Keane Barry
- Joe Cullen vs Wessel Nijman or Cameron Carolissen
- Michael van Gerwen vs James Hurrell or Jim Long
- Brendan Dolan vs Chris Landman or Lok Yin Lee
- Gary Anderson vs Jeffrey de Graaf or Rashad Sweeting
- Ross Smith vs Jim Williams or Paolo Nebrida
- Dave Chisnall vs Ricky Evans or Gordon Mathers
- Gabriel Clemens vs Niels Zonneveld or Robert Owen
- Dimitri Van den Bergh vs William O’Connor or Dylan Slevin
- Martin Schindler vs Callan Rydz or Romeo Grbavac
One darts legend that will have Christmas off is Steve Beaton.
The Bronzed Adonis failed at the first hurdle of qualifying as a Tour Card Holder.
Teenage star Luke Littler is set for a busy couple of weeks as he is one of the favourites to win the tournament.
The darts sensation has also been nominated for the BBC Sport Personality of the Year Award.
However, Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor has urged Littler to snub the award ceremony.
List of all-time Darts World Champions
BELOW is a list of Darts world champions by year.
The list does not include winners from the pre-Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) era or BDO world champions.
That means Raymond van Barneveld, for example, is only listed once – Barney also won four BDO titles – and none of Eric Bristow’s five BDO titles are included.
- 1994 – Dennis Priestley
- 1995 – Phil Taylor
- 1996 – Phil Taylor (2)
- 1997 – Phil Taylor (3)
- 1998 – Phil Taylor (4)
- 1999 – Phil Taylor (5)
- 2000 – Phil Taylor (6)
- 2001 – Phil Taylor (7)
- 2002 – Phil Taylor (8)
- 2003 – John Part
- 2004 – Phil Taylor (9)
- 2005 – Phil Taylor (10)
- 2006 – Phil Taylor (11)
- 2007 – Raymond van Barneveld
- 2008 – John Part (2)
- 2009 – Phil Taylor (12)
- 2010 – Phil Taylor (13)
- 2011 – Adrian Lewis
- 2012 – Adrian Lewis (2)
- 2013 – Phil Taylor (14)
- 2014 – Michael van Gerwen
- 2015 – Gary Anderson
- 2016 – Gary Anderson (2)
- 2017 – Michael van Gerwen (2)
- 2018 – Rob Cross
- 2019 – Michael van Gerwen (3)
- 2020 – Peter Wright
- 2021 – Gerwyn Price
- 2022 – Peter Wright (2)
- 2023 – Michael Smith
- 2024 – Luke Humphries
Most World Titles
- 14 – Phil Taylor
- 3 – Michael van Gerwen
- 2 – John Part, Adrian Lewis, Gary Anderson, Peter Wright
- 1 – Dennis Priestley, Raymond van Barneveld, Rob Cross, Gerwyn Price, Michael Smith, Luke Humphries