Who won the Nordic & Baltic Championship 2026?
Östlund did, and he did it the hard way. The PDC Nordic & Baltic Championship is only in its second year: 24 players from the final Nordic & Baltic ProTour Rankings, eight groups of three with one seed in each, and nothing for second place. Eight group winners came out of Friday and Saturday at the Odense Congress Center. Three of them were unseeded, and one of those three won the lot.
In the final, Labanauskas came back from 4-0 down to 4-2 and then to 7-4, but the published match reports have Östlund in front from the opening leg and never behind. He closed it 8-4 for a title that was worth considerably more than the trophy.
Three seeds in three matches on finals day
The seeding list is where this result gets interesting. Östlund was drawn in Group A with Daniel Larsson, the no.1 seed, and beat him in the decisive group match to go through. Finals day then handed him Petri Rasmus, the eighth seed, in the quarter-finals; Oskar Lukasiak, the fifth seed and his compatriot, in the semi-finals; and Labanauskas, the sixth seed, in the final. Four seeds, four wins, no deciding legs.
The 8-1 semi-final was the most emphatic performance of the weekend by anyone. Lukasiak had come through a 7-2 quarter-final of his own against Denmark’s Jonas Graversen, the fourth seed, and then won a single leg against Östlund.
| Round | Winner | Legs | Beaten |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quarter-final | Anton Östlund | 7-3 | Petri Rasmus (8) |
| Quarter-final | Oskar Lukasiak (5) | 7-2 | Jonas Graversen (4) |
| Quarter-final | Valters Melderis | 7-6 | Jonas Masalin |
| Quarter-final | Darius Labanauskas (6) | 7-2 | Jani Haavisto (3) |
| Semi-final | Anton Östlund | 8-1 | Oskar Lukasiak (5) |
| Semi-final | Darius Labanauskas (6) | 8-5 | Valters Melderis |
| Final | Anton Östlund | 8-4 | Darius Labanauskas (6) |
Source: PDC Nordic & Baltic, dartkanalen.se, dartsactueel.nl
Only one match on finals day went deep. Latvia’s Valters Melderis, also unseeded, beat Finland’s Jonas Masalin 7-6 in a deciding leg, then lost 8-5 to Labanauskas. Across the other six matches the winner dropped an average of under three legs.
Why the top two seeds had the least to lose
Larsson and Cor Dekker, the first and second seeds, both went out in the group stage — and both already knew they were going to London. The Nordic & Baltic ProTour Rankings send their top two to the World Championship directly, and Larsson and Dekker finished the regional season in those two places. Dekker lost his decisive group match to Masalin, who took it on a deciding leg. Viktor Tingström, the seventh seed, was the third seed beaten in the groups, by Melderis.
Teemu Harju, the Finn who won the inaugural title last year, also failed to come out of his group; Rasmus beat him to take Group H. The one seed with a genuine incentive and nothing in hand was Jani Haavisto, third on the regional ranking list and so first in line for a World Championship place had the title gone to a player already qualified. Labanauskas beat him 7-2 in the quarter-finals, and Östlund then removed the question entirely.
| Seed | Player | Exited |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniel Larsson | Group stage |
| 2 | Cor Dekker | Group stage |
| 3 | Jani Haavisto | Quarter-final |
| 4 | Jonas Graversen | Quarter-final |
| 5 | Oskar Lukasiak | Semi-final |
| 6 | Darius Labanauskas | Runner-up |
| 7 | Viktor Tingström | Group stage |
| 8 | Petri Rasmus | Quarter-final |
The 48th and last man into the Grand Slam
This result mattered beyond Odense. The Grand Slam of Darts expanded to 48 players for its 20th staging, and the running field lists had 47 names on them with a single blank line reading “Nordic & Baltic Championship Qualifier”. Ten of those 47 came through Friday’s Tour Card Holder Qualifier in Leicester, which is where Stephen Bunting got in and 2022 champion Michael Smith did not. Östlund is the 48th.
That also unblocks the draw. Wolverhampton’s 16 groups of three cannot be made until the field is full, and the field was not full until the last leg of Sunday’s final. The top 16 of the PDC Order of Merit go in as seeds, one per group, with the remaining 32 split into two pots by ranking — so Östlund, arriving as the last man in, will come out of the bottom pot alongside a seed and a mid-ranked player. The tournament runs 14-22 November at WV Active Aldersley; our 2026 calendar has the dates for what is left of the season.
Alexandra Palace in December
The World Championship place is the bigger prize. Östlund has never played at Alexandra Palace, and the 2026/27 event is the first to be staged in the Great Hall with a 128-player field, starting on 11 December. He joins the regional route’s other graduates there: Larsson and Dekker from the top of the ranking list, and Labanauskas, who came into Odense already qualified through the ProTour Order of Merit and therefore had only the Grand Slam place to play for in the final.
Recent history suggests this is not a courtesy invitation. Andreas Harrysson topped the Nordic & Baltic rankings a year ago, made his debut at 50 and knocked out 12th seed Ross Smith 3-2 before reaching the fourth round. Harrysson was in Odense this weekend too, beaten by Lukasiak in Group E. For a comparable story from another PDC affiliate, Andras Borbely’s Hungarian Super League win did the same job for Hungary last week.
Full standings for the regional circuit that produced all four of these qualifiers are on the live PDC Nordic & Baltic Order of Merit.