World champion TRINA GULLIVER— a giant in women’s darts — writes for Darts World readers:
HELLO AGAIN. Well, the Lakeside World Championship 2007 prize fund has been released and it is good to see that it has been increased by a further £15,000. However, it is extremely disappointing that the BDO have not seen it necessary to give the ladies’ championship any increase. I’m not talking here about prize money for the champion or the runner-up.
I believe that a sum of money should have been set aside for the ladies and used for the first round losers. Therefore, those who have fought through and qualified, whether through the rankings or the tough qualifiers, find they can actually afford to attend and not have to part fund their appearance in what should be the proudest moment of their darts careers.
The BDO have made a simple and — to my mind — ignorant decision, which only goes to confirm how little the ladies are considered on the world stage.
I think this lack of movement in the ladies’ prize fund is quite frankly an insult to all women darts players across the world.Whatever happened to equality, which seems to be happening in other sports?
★ ★ ★
TO BE honest, I’ve not been up to much recently.I’ve had a couple of spare weekends so I’ve filled them by doing some DIY at home. Once you are a property owner there is always work to be done — I’ve had the paint brushes out and even been doing a spot of tiling in the kitchen. It was all good fun — paint and tile adhesive everywhere!
There were also a few swear words flying around when things have not gone according to plan. But so far so good. The tiles have remained on the wall and I’ve managed to avoid stepping into a tin of paint. And I haven’t fallen off the ladders — yet! There’s plenty more to do, so there is still time …
★ ★ ★
I ENJOYED the British Classic weekend. We decided to make a bit of a weekend of it, meeting up with friends on the Saturday evening in Kettering. Congratulations to Dee Bateman who took the Ladies’ Singles title, beating Clare Bywaters in the final.
I was beaten in the earlier rounds by Sarah Cope. I was 2-0 down and managed to level and then missed doubles in the final leg as Sarah went through.
Hopefully there will be a lot more next month as we hurtle into the busy autumn period and the run-in to the end of the year and the world championships.Doesn’t time fly?
★ ★ ★
UNTIL THEN.
Trina
Images: Darts World
