Zoe in local paper

THERE was double delight for Redditch teenage darts sensation Zoe Jones when she captured two gold medals at the 20th Europe Youth Cup in Holland last weekend, The 16-year-old was making her second international appearance for the England Youth Darts team and she was right on target to become the European girls singles champion and also capture the Pairs Championship with partner Lauren Hitchens, The event in Veldhoven was hosted by the Netherlands Dart Bond and 16 teams made up of four U18 boys and two U18 girls represented their countries from all over Europe, Zoe arrived on Thursday morning and her first game was later that day in the round-robin pairs KO with her England team-mate Hitchens, Zoe and Lauren breezed through their opening games, beating Sweden 3-1, Wales 3-0 and Finland 3-0, On Friday they started slowly by losing 3-0 to Russia but soon got back to winning ways in beating Turkey 3-0 and Germany 3-0, When all the points were added up England emerged as group winners and had reached the semi-final stages where they would face Hungary on finals day, With all the doubles matches completed it was the start of the singles round-robin matches and Zoe was in group 2 of 4. Her first game was against Kimberley Lewis of Wales, the 2007 champion and 2007 World Masters champion, but this did not faze Zoe as she won 3-0 with 15, 18 and 17-dart legs, Zoe’s next game was against Adrien Vegso of Hungary and she won 3-0 before being beaten 3-2 by Thea Kaaijk of the Netherlands in her only blip of the day, Zoe was soon back to winning ways by beating Kristtin-Elise Schou of Norway 3-0 and Anna Maria Schulze of Germany 3-0, All the points were added up and Zoe had again emerged as group winner and went through to the knockout stages and the final 16 players.

Zoe’s first game in the knockout stages was against Gemma Bowen of Wales and again Zoe made light work of the game and won 3-0, With only one more game to go to reach the stage semi-finals Zoe had to play the reigning Winmau World Champion and 2008 Europe Cup runner-up Linda Odén of Sweden, Again Zoe was off to a flying start, winning the first two legs in 15 and 16 darts. Linda then won the third leg in 21 darts only for Zoe to win the fourth leg and the match 3-1 and go through to her second semi-final of the day to be played on Saturday, On finals day Zoe was on the practice board at 8am preparing to play Hitchens in the first stage semi-finals at 10am, In a nervous start by both girls, Zoe lost the first leg but soon levelled and then started to find her range and took the third leg in 15 darts with a 130-game shot. Now only one leg away from the final, Zoe continued to find the scores and took the fourth leg to win the match 3-1 and book her place in the final with a 22.84 average, With only a ten-minute break Zoe had to return to the stage for her pair’s semi-final against Hungary and in a hard fought match Zoe and Lauren ran out 3-2 winners, Zoe played Finland’s Aliisa Koskivirta in the girls’ singles final. She won the toss and started the first leg scoring well and only needed one dart at double top to secure the first leg, Aliisa started the second leg strongly but Zoe played excellently with 2x100 scores and a 137 to leave double top which she finished in two darts, The third leg was as close as can be with Aliisa having 57 left and Zoe 31. Again Zoe was the coolest and finished 31 in two darts with single 15 and double 8, With the championship already in mind Zoe rushed through the last leg and finished 59, again in two darts, while Aliisa was at 174. Zoe won 4-0 recording a 24.89 average and an overall championship average of 22.74 - the highest ever recorded in the 20 years history of the competition.