The Port Vila Darts Association is aiming to have the sport of darts included in the Pacific Games and Mini Games.
Association’s President, Stu McEwen said their long-term goal is to involve the sport in the Pacific competition so that the national representative teams are playing international competition every two years.
“PVDA goal is to improve the quality of darts throughout Vanuatu. The various dart playing Nations throughout the South Pacific have formed a games committee. These games are now known as the South Pacific Darts Championship.”
“The first of these games was held in Vanuatu in January 2018 when PNG, Solomons, Tonga, Niue, Nauru and Vanuatu 1 & 2 all participated in both a Women’s and Men’s competition. Vanuatu then sent both a Women’s and Men’s representative team to Niue in January 2020 where the Men won Bronze and the Women’s team won Silver,” McEwen said.
The association is currently hosting a competition with darts players competing in six divisions.
“PVDA started the current competition way back in July 2013. It commenced with 1 Division with 8 teams. The original competition had a huge variation of player standards, so there were A grade quality teams mixed with B & C grade quality team. Whilst there are numerous stand-alone teams within the competition now, most are based around people working for the same organization.”
PVDA has grown over the years since 2013.
It now has 6 divisions with 8 teams each, which is 48 teams.
“Most teams have 5 registered players, however some teams have 7 or 8 players. There are currently over 300 players in Port Vila playing darts on a weekly basis,” explained McEwen.
He also said they are attempting to raise the funds to send both a Women’s and Men’s Vanuatu National team to Tonga next year.
“PVDA will be holding BBQ’s at Wilco on the 1st Saturday of every month until December and 3rd Saturday every month at ABM Manples carpark, also until December. We are asking the community to support these BBQ’s which in turn will support our National teams to attend the South Pacific Darts Championship in Tonga 2022.”