Rising Dutch star Jelle Klaasen caused a huge shock beating defending champion Raymond van Barneveld 7-5 to win the Lakeside World Darts championship.

Jelle Klaasen celebrates his shock title win at Lakeside

In a thrilling final watched by 4.2 million viewers, Klaasen made a whirlwind start, winning the first two sets before the four-time champion found his rhythm.

The 21-year-old Dutchman began to exert his authority and led 5-4 with some exciting darts against his compatriot.

He won the crucial 11th set to lead 6-5 and kept his cool for a famous win.

Klaasen, a 100-1 shot at the start of the tournament, had already beaten top seed Mervyn King on his way to the final and becomes the youngest ever world champion.

Klaasen, who has only playing the game for four years, reeled off seven legs in a row to go 5-4 ahead and a shock looked on the cards

Van Barneveld levelled the match yet again, winning a tight 10th set 3-2 but he paid the price for some more missed chances with Klaasen capitalising to win the £60,000 first prize.

The BBC was extremely pleased with the viewing figures for the whole week that averaged 1.2 million viewers per game, the initial response from both Eurosport and SBS 6 in Holland has indicated that as many as 5 million people watched the Lakeside in Holland alone, and that’s One in Three people.

Interactive viewing also came into it’s own, where viewers could continue to watch other games even after the scheduled viewing finished.

With the Blade III being the chosen board of the World Championships, sales have never been more buoyant in the countries that had television viewing.

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