Gerwyn Price’s actions on stage ‘intimidated’ Premier League Darts star as rival opens up
Gian van Veen has admitted that Gerwyn Price’s ferocious on-stage behaviour left him rattled during the early stages of their rivalry — confessing he was so thrown by the Welshman’s intensity that he genuinely did not know how to react.
The Dutch world number three made the candid revelation ahead of their Night Two Premier League clash in Antwerp in February, with the comments resurfacing in the wake of their Berlin quarter-final on Thursday — a match Price won 6-1 as van Veen returned from kidney stone surgery, still clearly feeling the effects.
Van Veen was speaking to Tungsten Tales about what makes Price uniquely difficult to play, and the answer went beyond darts ability alone.
“Especially the first couple of games I played him, I was quite intimidated by him on stage, by the way he was doing as well,” he said.
The specific aspect that unsettled him most was Price’s trademark roaring celebrations — the explosive reactions to maximums and crucial finishes that have made ‘The Iceman’ one of the most physically imposing players on the circuit.
“Definitely the roaring. You know, just he’s there on stage,” van Veen said when asked what made Price different from other opponents. “Especially the first couple of times I played him, I think it was in the first year of my tour card. Every time I knew what was going to happen when I was on stage, but then when he hit the good shot or a 180, then he started roaring, and I didn’t really know what to do.”
The uncertainty created an internal battle that proved deeply distracting. “Should I roar back? Should I do all kinds of stuff? And I think that really got me out of my game the first couple of times,” van Veen said.
The irony was that the darts themselves were of the very highest quality. “Especially the first couple of times, he beat me every time. And if I remember correctly, yeah, I reached above 105 every time as well. He played phenomenally in all those games,” van Veen added.
That pattern — van Veen producing elite numbers and still losing — illustrated just how much Price’s stage presence was extracting from him beyond the pure arithmetic of the match.
The breakthrough, when it came, proved transformative. A victory over Price in Prague last year gave van Veen a reference point he had previously lacked. “But now I know what it’s like to beat him. I know what it takes to beat him. So, yeah, that gave me much more confidence going into tomorrow,” he said ahead of Antwerp, adding: “But now I’ve grown so much as a player, so it shouldn’t be an issue anymore.”
The evidence of that growth has been substantial. Van Veen reached the World Championship final in January, went toe-to-toe with the best players in the sport throughout his debut Premier League campaign, and has been regarded as one of darts’ most exciting new forces. The kidney stone ordeal that ruled him out of Dublin and Wieze was, by all accounts, one of the most painful episodes of his young career, and he had made the trip to Berlin despite still feeling fatigued.
As for Price, Thursday’s 6-1 dispatch of a below-par van Veen did little to challenge the thesis van Veen had set out — that when the Welshman is at his best, his combination of elite scoring, ferocious presence and deep experience makes him one of the hardest players in the world to face when the moment matters.
Price himself had made no secret of his intentions heading into the Berlin quarter-final, saying pointedly: “I’m up there not to show mercy to anyone.” The darts confirmed it.
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