darts
Back on the mountain: Clemens and the height of the fall in the Ally Pally
After reaching the World Cup semi-finals last year, he is the most promising German participant: Gabriel Clemens. photo
© Zac Goodwin/Press Association/dpa
The Darts World Cup last year changed Gabriel Clemens’ life in the short term. Expectations are correspondingly high when we return.
Returned to the place of his memorable success Gabriel Clemens back before his own World Cup start. After arriving in England on Tuesday, the best German darts professional drove to the mountain in north London and breathed in the sometimes stuffy air in the legendary Alexandra Palace for the first time.
The German Giant didn’t mix in with the pack; he was in the players’ area on the day of the German double pack with games from Dragutin Horvat and shooting star Ricardo Pietreczko.
That will change on Thursday (10 p.m./Sport1 and DAZN). Clemens steps into the spotlight. And anything other than a victory over outsider Man Lok Leung from Hong Kong would be a bitter disappointment. The 40-year-old from Saarland is aware of the enormous importance of the World Cup. “Lives can change there. It is simply the biggest and most important tournament,” said Clemens.
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The tournament has already changed his life as an athlete. Completely surprisingly, the former machinist made it to the semi-finals at the last edition, clearly defeating the then leader Gerwyn Price from Wales 5-1. The result: Clemens flashed across the television screens in front of an audience of millions on the 8 p.m. Tagesschau, and after the World Cup he was invited directly to ZDF’s “Aktuelle Sportstudio”.
“The attention is extremely on the World Cup. This year it will be even more extreme because of Gaga’s semi-final. Wherever he was, it was also brutal. I think there will be similar attention on it again this year,” Martin Schindler told the German press -Agency. Schindler is not only the second best German darts professional, but also Clemens’ friend and travel partner. He recently admitted that all the appointments after the World Cup coup might have been a bit much.
He is relatively calm about the outcome of the World Cup, regardless of the height of the fall. “Personally, I don’t have any more pressure. The pressure is always put on me somehow. You have to write something too,” said Clemens to the journalists in his typical sausageiness, which earned him great sympathy from the fans last year. He doesn’t like interviews and the media and says so openly. The fact that he can no longer escape everything that surrounds him is something he brought upon himself with an excellent World Cup.
Semifinals? “Why not?”
Professional colleagues and experts have a lot of confidence in Clemens. If the opening win against Leung succeeds, Dave Chisnall from England would be waiting in round three. A top-five opponent won’t be in the quarterfinals until the quarterfinals at the earliest. “The Ally Pally is a good place for him, he beat Peter Wright there and achieved great success. He will take that with him, he knows that too,” said darts expert Elmar Paulke.
The sport of darts in Germany has benefited from Clemens’ successes. In 2023, more tickets than ever were sold at the PDC Europe events. The ratings for the current World Cup indicate a further upward trend. And the hottest phase, the time after Christmas, is just coming. Will Clemens make it to the semi-finals again? “Why not? He reached the semi-finals again at the Players Championship Finals. He played solid to very, very good darts. I think we should have as much faith in him as always,” said Florian Hempel, who won on Sunday with a A 3-1 win against Dylan Slevin from Ireland ensured Germany had a top start to the World Cup.