Christian Kist wins BDO title after a thrilling final

Wednesday, 18 January 2012 15:19

Written by Editor

Kist had shown throughout the tournament that he was the man to beat. Christian Kist completed a remarkable Lakeside debut by beating Tony O'Shea to take the BDO world title. Qualifier Kist,  entered the tournament as a rank outsider, and was only ranked as the 13th-best player in Holland in 2011. But the 25-year-old road worker from the Netherlands defeated O'Shea 7-5 in a thrilling final to win the £100,000 prize, reported to be 50 times his career earnings to date.

"I was 6-2 in front and there was no problem and then Tony came back and the nerves came," Kist told BBC Sport.

During the tournament, Kist played outstanding darts,  beating sixth seed and countryman Jan Dekker, Belgian Geert De Vos, England's Alan Norris and two-time world champion Ted (The Count) Hankey.

In Sunday's final, Englishman O'Shea, known as "The Silverback", who lost 7-6 in a thrilling final against Ted Hankey in 2009, started brightly, reeling off the first three legs to take the first set as Kist struggled to hit the trebles, although he had hit a 180 maximum with his first throw.

But the Dutchman settled down to win the next two sets and take the lead in the best-of-13 match. The fourth set went down to a deciding leg, with O'Shea holding his nerve to complete a 68 checkout to level the scores.

Kist won the fifth, which included a 12-dart checkout to take the first leg, and then also claimed the sixth set to lead 4-2 at the interval. After the break, Kist showed no signs of feeling the pressure as he secured the next two sets to move to within one of his maiden World Championship crown. The Dutchman edged to within two legs of the title but O'Shea, who knocked out defending champion Martin Adams in the quarter-finals, stopped the rot by clawing back a set to reduce the deficit to three.

The momentum looked to have swung towards "The Silverback" as he won six straight legs to trail by just one set.
But Kist finally got a leg on the board and when O'Shea lost the penultimate leg after miscounting his checkout on 112, Kist seized back the momentum and hit the double 16 at the second time of asking for victory.