James Walk­lin and Kim­ber­li Ri­vas have of­fi­cial­ly set the pace for the 2026 darts sea­son, emerg­ing as the Men’s and Ladies’ Cham­pi­ons at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Darts As­so­ci­a­tion (TT­DA) Mixed For­mat Na­tion­al Open. Held on Tues­day (Jan­u­ary 13), at the Kos­mos Club in Port-of-Spain, the tour­na­ment served as the tra­di­tion­al cur­tain-rais­er to in­tro­duce the com­pet­i­tive for­mat for the year ahead.

​In the men’s fi­nal, Walk­lin was in a no-non­sense mood, rac­ing to a 2-0 lead over Joshua Bal­four. Al­though Bal­four man­aged to pull a leg back to make it 2-1, Walk­lin quick­ly dashed any hopes of a come­back to se­cure a 3-1 vic­to­ry. The ladies’ draw was equal­ly com­pet­i­tive, end­ing in a show­down be­tween Kim­ber­li Ri­vas and Karen Ram­cha­ran. Af­ter a hard-fought bat­tle, Ri­vas emerged vic­to­ri­ous with a 3-1 win to claim the ti­tle.

​The event saw a ro­bust turnout with 46 men and 13 ladies par­tic­i­pat­ing in the sin­gles knock­out tour­na­ment. This suc­cess sets the stage for the Mixed For­mat League, which of­fi­cial­ly start­ed on Tues­day (Jan­u­ary 20), with a record 21 teams reg­is­tered across three di­vi­sions.

​The top-tier A Di­vi­sion fea­tures six teams, in­clud­ing de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons De Orig­i­nal Game Shot (DOGS). Team cap­tain Ged­des Fon­cette sig­naled his squad’s in­tent to “stamp their au­thor­i­ty” on the na­tion­al stage with back-to-back ti­tles. DOGS will start their cam­paign against mul­ti­ple league win­ners E-Z Lines in a match ex­pect­ed to shape the ear­ly ti­tle race. Mean­while, south-based Triple Vi­sion will make their A Di­vi­sion de­but against the ex­pe­ri­enced Scor­pi­ons.

​The B Di­vi­sion will al­so con­test six teams, fea­tur­ing a clash be­tween new­ly pro­mot­ed Reck­less and the tricky Shang­hai Bulls. Flight­ed Friends, who nar­row­ly missed pro­mo­tion last sea­son, will look to top the ta­ble as they open against the West­er­ly Pi­rates. The C Di­vi­sion has ex­pand­ed to nine teams fol­low­ing the ad­di­tion of four new squads, cre­at­ing a wide-open race for pro­mo­tion.

​TT­DA Pres­i­dent Adam Da Cos­ta ex­pressed his en­thu­si­asm for the record-break­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion and the growth of the sport. Da Cos­ta not­ed that 2026 will be a piv­otal year as the as­so­ci­a­tion pre­pares the na­tion­al team for the Caribbean Darts Cham­pi­onship in the Ba­hamas. To en­sure play­ers re­main sharp for in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty, the TT­DA plans to host a steady sched­ule of com­pet­i­tive tour­na­ments through­out the sea­son.