World Championship Men

The 1993 Embassy World Darts Championship will have notoriety within the history of World Darts. It was the 16th staging of the competition, but it turned out to be the last time that the sport had a unified World Championship.

From 1989 to 1991, the Embassy World Championship was the only darts tournament that had received television coverage. A group of 16 players (including all previous World Champions) wanted to appoint a PR consultant to improve the image of the game. They created the World Darts Council (WDC), later the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) in late January 1992.

By the time of the 1993 Embassy World Championship, the WDC had already held their own tournament, the 1992 Lada UK Classic (won by Mike Gregory) in October 1992. The tournament had been broadcast on Anglia Television, and the WDC players wanted to see their exposure to television coverage increase. During the tournament, the 16 WDC players released a statement saying that they would only play in the 1994 Embassy World Championship if it came under the auspices of the WDC, and that they only recognised the WDC as having the authority to sanction their participation in darts tournaments worldwide.

The second round saw several upset results including defeats of three former World Champions. Eric Bristow lost to Bob Anderson, while defending champion Phil Taylor lost to Kevin Spiolek. Dennis Priestley, the number one seed, lost to Steve Beaton after achieving a record average of 102.63 against Jocky Wilson in the first round. Other notable upsets during the tournament were Kevin Spiolek beating Kevin Kenny, Wayne Weening beating Rod Harrington, and Bobby George beating Mike Gregory. Dutchman Raymond van Barneveld became the first Dutch player to win a game at the World Championship beating Graham Miller in a final set. He went on to loose to John Lowe in round two after a memorable match where he hit a 170 finish along the way.

John Lowe went on to beat Alan Warriner in the final and claim this last ever unified world title in the sports of darts - the third world title of Lowe's career. With his previous victories in 1979 and 1987, he became the first player to win the World title in three different decades.