This year marks the 30th anniversary of the inaugural World Darts Championship. The PDC's showpiece event has seen 11 different champions crowned over the last 30 years, with six superstars lifting the Sid Waddell Trophy on multiple occasions.
Reigning champion Michael Smith will hope to join that exclusive club on January 3, but how have defending champions fared 12 months on from glory?
Phil Taylor’s dominance in the sport is highlighted by his astonishing haul of 14 PDC World Championship titles.
The Stoke-on-Trent legend had a stranglehold over darts’ biggest prize between 1995-2006, only failing to lift the trophy once when he lost to Canada’s John Part in the 2003 decider.
Taylor’s worst performance as the reigning champion came in 2014, when he suffered a shock second round exit to then 23-year-old Michael Smith.
Incredibly, only three times has the reigning champion suffered defeat in the opening match of their title defence since the tournament's inception.
Dennis Priestley exited the tournament in the round-robin stage after his 1994 victory, and John Part has the unwanted accolade of twice being sent home after triumph - losing to Mark Dudbridge and Bill Davis in 2004 and 2009 respectively.
Fortunately for ‘Bully Boy’, his victory over Kevin Doets on the opening night of the 2024 Paddy Power World Championship ensures he won’t follow the same fate, though the recent record of previous champions has been underwhelming.
Only Michael van Gerwen as the 2019 champion has progressed beyond the quarter-final stage in the past five years.
The Dutch superstar was a runner-up to Peter Wright in 2020, as the Scotsman captured his first of two World Championship titles.
Wright was knocked out at the third round stage in 2021 by last year’s semi-finalist Gabriel Clemens, before falling at the same hurdle against Kim Huybrechts 12 months ago.
It is no surprise that after the supremacy of Phil Taylor in darts’ flagship event, Gary Anderson and Van Gerwen have been the best performers a year on from their triumph.
Anderson won back-to-back World Championship titles in 2015 and 2016 and was only denied a hat-trick of successes by a rampant Van Gerwen in 2017.
Van Gerwen himself has never failed to make at least the semi-final stage when defending the World Championship, though he is yet to successfully defend his crown to date.
A special mention also goes to Adrian Lewis, who is one of three players – alongside Taylor and Anderson – to celebrate successive World Championship wins on the Alexandra Palace stage.
Lewis achieved the astonishing feat in 2011 and 2012, eventually losing his crown to three-time World Champion Van Gerwen in a thrilling quarter-final tie back in 2013.
Current champion Smith continues his title charge after the Christmas break, as he bids to become the first player since former mentor Anderson to retain the Sid Waddell Trophy.
The world number one has reached back-to-back finals on the sport’s biggest stage, and will be hoping his love of the set-play format – coupled with his experience of lifting the title – will give him the edge over the rest of the field.