bwin Sportsblog - Other Sports - An amazing night at the Alexandra Palace

The turn of the New Year along with Christmas means one thing in the sporting world and this is the back to back world championships in Darts. The PDC event starts before the BDO version but both run at the same time for a while. With a whole string of movers in recent years from the BDO to the PDC then the BDO version always has the ring of a “Championship” compared to a “Premier League” about it. But just to show how strong the BDO has been in recent years, the first and second favourites both crashed out last night in the PDC to recent BDO players. With 20 world titles between them you would have thought that at least one of Phil Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld would come through. Taylor was ousted 5-2 by ex-BDO champ Mark Webster. So the 15 times world champion will not make it 16 in 2011. Then Barneveld was thumped 5-1 which completed an amazing night. But speaking of champions and BDO champ and twice winner Martin Adams came back from losing the first five legs to come through 3-1 in his first round game. Adams is an absolute giant in the BDO version these days and he is short priced to win his third title. Now that he has shaken off the nervous side of his game then he is a formidable opponent now. But it will be interesting to see how last years finalist Dave Chisnell fares this year after blowing almost everyone away last year.