PDC European Championship 2014 live on ITV4

ITV4’s bumper autumn of live PDC darts begins this weekend with the 2014 European Darts Championship as all the world’s best players meet in the German city of Muelheim to compete for the title.

Featuring a prize fund of £250,000, with £55,000 going to the winner, the top 16 players in the PDC’s order of merit, who include Michael van Gerwen, Phil Taylor and Simon Whitlock, compete against the best players from across Europe in the three-day event held for the third successive year at RWE Sporthalle.

This is the seventh year of this event which for the first five years was dominated by Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor, though the last two years have seen different winners with Australian Simon Whitlock winning in 2012, before losing out to Adrian Lewis in last year’s final.

Lewis, famously known as ‘Jackpot’ due to a $72,000 win at a casino in Las Vegas in 2005, a prize he was unable to claim due to being under age according to American gaming laws, has experienced mixed darting fortunes this season.

He won his first UK Open title, broadcast on ITV4 for the first time earlier this year, and sailed through to the semi-finals of the World Championships at the beginning of 2014, only to suffer a 6-0 defeat at the hands of Michael van Gerwen of the Netherlands.

The Stoke-on-Trent player will be looking to rediscover his form during a busy schedule of tournaments for the PDC players ahead of the World Championships at Alexandra Palace over the festive period.

Before Christmas, there are four major televised events for darts fans to look forward to, starting with the European Championship in Germany, which always contains one of the most diverse fields in any of the televised PDC events.

Along with the establish top 16 players from the PDC Order of Merit, with a further eight players qualifying from the ProTour Order of Merit, they will be joined by seven European, and non-UK, players from the ProTour Order of Merit and a Scandinavian qualifier.

This year’s European contingent includes a number of familiar faces who made their name on the BDO circuit, including Norway’s Robert Wagner and Dutchmen Benito van de Pas and 2012 Lakeside world champion Christian Kist, while home interest is provided by Jyhan Artut.

The first round will be split across two sessions on Friday, October 24, with the second round taking place on Saturday, before the event concludes on Sunday with the quarter-finals in the afternoon session and the semi-finals and final in the evening session.

As ever, the likes of world number one Michael Van Gerwen and the evergreen Phil Taylor will be in contention for the £55,000 first prize in Germany this weekend, while big hitters such as James Wade, Raymond van Barneveld and Stephen Bunting will also be in the frame for teh title.

The start of an unmissable autumn and winter of world class darts starts here with the seventh staging of the PDC European Darts Championship and the whole tournament will be live and free on ITV4 this weekend.

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ITV Sport will broadcast all three days of the 2014 PDC European Darts Championship exclusively live from the German city of Muelheim on October 24-26.

Live coverage of all six sessions will be shown on ITV4 and in high-definition on ITV4 HD across the weekend, with each session of play introduced by Matt Smith alongside regular ITV pundits and former PDC professionals Chris Mason and Alan Warriner-Little.

Stuart Pyke and John Rawling lead the commentary team in Germany alongside Mason and Warriner-Little, while Ned Boulting conducts the pre and post match interviews with the players.

ITV4’s live coverage starts on Friday at 12.45pm and continues every afternoon and evening until Sunday night when the 2014 European Championship winner will be crowned, while darts fans away from their TV sets can watch the action live online via ITV Player.

The tournament kicks off ITV4’s bumper autumn of live free-to-air darts, with the Unibet Masters on the following weekend (November 1-2) and the Players Championship in late November also to come on the channel.

ITV Sport signed a three-year deal with the PDC last year to cover four televised PDC events during the annual tour calendar, a deal which runs until the end of 2015.

Visit the official PDC website for more information, results and statistics about the tournament.

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