The PDC Nordic & Baltic Tour is, as you may guess, open to players from the Nordic and Baltic countries, with the top two players on the tour at the end of the campaign securing themselves spots at the Alexandra Palace for the World Darts Championship.
This time around, the two big winners were Darius Labanauskas of Lithuania and Jeffrey de Graaf, representing Sweden. With the latter proving one of the strongest of the bunch for the second successive year, De Graaf's success is indicative of a swing in the balance of power on the Nordic and Baltic Tour over recent years.
Starting in 2012, the early years of the Nordic and Baltic Tour were dominated by the Finnish through the likes of Jarkko Komula (winner of the tour in 2012), Jani Haavisto (winner in 2014) and Kim Viljanan (winner in 2015, 2016 & 2017), with only Denmark's Per Laursen breaking the Finnish dominance of the early years, winning the tour in 2013. In fact, 36 of the first 60 tournaments held by the PDC Nordic & Baltic Tour, were won by a Finnish darter.
Comparing that to the last six years of the tour however, the Finnish flags become notably fewer. Over the ten tournaments held over the course of the 2024 campaign, just one saw Finnish glory, with the tide having turned to the Swedish darters. Although Marko Kantele did win the tour in 2023, the switch of De Graaf from the Netherlands to Sweden and the emergence of the likes of Andreas Harrysson, Daniel Larsson, Oskar Lukasiak and Johan Engstrom among others has seen the Swedes come forward as the new, dominant nation.
In 2024 for example, 7 of the 10 tournament victories went back to Sweden, with this season coming after 3 titles wins apiece in 2023 and 2022. Will the Swedish stranglehold continue? Will the Finnish fightback? Or will another strong nation emerge in the coming years? Only time will tell.
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