Polish Darts Organization Darts in Poland

DARTS is a sport you can find nearly in each corner of the World, even in such exotic places like Kuwait, Borneo or Cyprus. Dart players - men and women, Masters and amateurs, elders or juniors play in thousands of Darts Leagues and tournament over the Globe. The game of Darts exists in every continent, than why not in POLAND ? Bit surprised ? Yes - we play Darts too. * * * The Darts boom, we can say without any doubts, exploded in Poland in the middle of the 90s. It happened mostly thanks to owners of pubs and students clubs, in which first slowly, and later more and more quickly electronic dartboards made their appearance. In Poland in contradiction to other countries soft tips Darts is mainly played. This does not mean that traditional Darts (steel - tips) is not known in Poland or popular either. But, on the contrary, steel dartboards hang mostly in the homes of every player who is not able to live without darts. However in pubs & clubs electronic Darts make the decided majority. Pubs and clubs are the "maternity wards" of the best Polish Dart players. Dart Clubs which belong to the most famous in Poland are Students' Clubs: "KSD Pralnia" Szczecin , "MKSD Piwersi", "Na Kotlowem" and "Omega" in Cracow, "Pico Dart Club", "DKD Pub 13" Oleśnica and "Grunengold Farmer" Kielce and "Vegas" in ... Warsaw. "KSD Pralnia", "MKSD Piwersi" & "DKD Oleśnica" are at this moment, the only three regular Dart Sports Clubs existing according to Polish law in the same way as eg. soccer and basketball clubs. The growing rank of Darts in Poland testifies also the fact that, in the most important Dart event in Poland in the last season, Polish Dart Cup '1999/2000, 450 players from different pubs and clubs all over the country took part. One year earlier the final tournament of the eight PDC 1998/1999 tournaments was organised... about a hundred metres underground in the ancient Wieliczka Salt Mine, where (apart from the museum) there is one of the few underground sports halls in Poland. The stakes of PDC were not only valuable prizes but also the right to represent Poland in the World Soft-tip Darts Championships in Spain. In 1999, 8 gents and 4 ladies advanced to the National Team and took part in this competition. However Polish male players were not succesfull this time but the women playing in doubles (Cricket Cut throat) took the Silver medal. But the most exciting news came from Riccione (Italy) in the beginning of June '2000. Adam Skalski, member of PDO, became the Vice-champion of Europe in 501 d.o.!!! He also took the 3rd place and received bronze medail in doubles 501 d.o. playing with his team-mate Paweł Trzaska. Darts is continuously growing in Poland. New Dart Clubs and Teams are appearing next to already existing ones. In the last season (1999 / 2000), in Regional Dart Leagues there were more than 150 different teams playing. This season (2000 / 2001), because of the biggest ever number of nominated teams, legaues are divided into groups or A & B and even C grades. Probably more than 300 Teams will start the competition in October '2000. Darts has also found its place in the columns of the most important national daily papers and sports magazines like "Gazeta Wyborcza" and "Supernova". Several magazines (eg. Dart Echo) commemorated only to Darts came to their existence. Private and regional TV stations started to show the clips from different Darts events in Poland. Recently different channels started to show programs devoted only to the sport of Darts. But it is still not enough for the the most hot-headed dart fanatics. They wait up to watch foreign reports on satellite TV late into the night. In 1997 Polish Darts Organisation was established. At this moment 164 players are members of PDO and this number is growing continuously. One of the most important points of the PDO statute is to endeavour to write Darts into the list of officialy registered sports according to the Polish law, to promote Darts among Poles and Polish Darts outside Poland, to organise different Dart events and to bring to PDO new Dart players from all of the regions. Another very important things for us is to promote traditional, steel-tips Darts, and also for Poland to be a member of World Darts Federation. * * * The unexpectedly fast development of Darts in Poland is being helped by the Internet, a main source of information about different organisations and events in the World, about different game rules, how to organise a tournament or the league in the professional way. One can find current reports from main World Dart events there, current World rankings and records, details about the best players ever, clubs and leagues in the World, discuss Darts with people one would never meet otherwise. Polish Dart players learned very quickly how to put the different information from the Internet into practise and that the E-mail is one of the best ways to exchange information. At this moment more than 50 Dart Clubs have Internet access - their own or through their members. Over 250 Polish Darters have access to E-mail. Several Dart Clubs, Leagues, teams and players have their own Web sites. This site came into existence thanks to numerous people for whom Darts is one of the ways of life (if not the only :):):). We hope you enjoy our Web Site.

Latest update - 9.11.2000