Gian van Veen won his first major final and is the youngest European darts champion in history.
In the final in Dortmund, the up-and-coming Dutchman dispelled former world champion and world number one Luke Humphries (England) on Sunday after a strong performance with 11:10. “It’s crazy, I had to cry. What an evening,” said van Veen.
Van Veen (23) replaces his compatriot Michael Van Gerwen, who lifted the European Championship trophy for the first time in 2014 at the age of 25 and thus set a record. Humphries missed the tenth major victory of his career in the Westfalenhalle and is still waiting for his first European championship title. The 30-year-old has won all majors apart from the European Championships and the UK Open.
Van Veen, who had eliminated his highly decorated compatriot Van Gerwen in the semi-finals (11:9), needed some warm-up time in his first major final. He quickly turned a 1:4 into a 4:4 after the break and the duel was open again. Van Veen initially missed two match darts with a 10:9 lead, Humphries (30) took advantage of the mistakes, equalized and had a match dart of his own. The favorite missed, van Veen struck.
On Sunday afternoon, Ricardo Pietreczko was the last German participant to be eliminated from the home game in the Westfalenhalle. In the quarterfinals, the Berliner lost to the Dutchman Danny Noppert (5:10). Last year, Pietreczko had already lost out against Noppert in the round of the top eight. Pietreczko conceded two early breaks and was quickly 1:5 behind. But the German improved, won once on the opponent’s throw and made the duel open until 5:7. The break to 5:9 was decisive. Noppert then failed due to Humphries (8:11).
Max Hopp achieved the best European Championship result by a player from Germany in 2018 when he reached the semi-finals. Prize money totaling 600,000 pounds was distributed in Dortmund.