At the end of the second set of the World Darts Championship final, the biggest match in one of the world’s biggest indoor sports, Luke Littler calmly walked off the stage, smiled at his family and rubbed his hands together. as if he had foresight of the beating he was about to dish out.
The man, no, the boy who was crammed into London’s Alexandra Palace by 3,000 people to watch history being made, plus millions more watching at home and in pubs across Britain and around the world, did so not only with sober ease, or with a flamboyant style. , but with contemptuous taste.
The dart finals are better won – the great player of all time, Phil Taylor, delivered three 7-0 whitewashes in his heyday – but not like this. Never like that.
Luke Littler is 17. He has facial hair that men many years older than him are eager to grow, and in a sport whose history is rooted in pubs, Littler cannot yet drink alcohol in a pub.
And yet he already carries with him the bravado and stage persona of someone ready to lead the sport down paths it has never traveled before, and that’s exactly what he’s already doing.
Like Pele and Serena Williams, Littler won one of sports’ biggest prizes as a teenager (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
Littler has already helped push darts further into the mainstream in Britain, with viewing figures on Sky Sports, a subscription service, increasing by almost 200 percent for some tournaments in 2024, after a record 4.8 million for last year’s final (the most watched final). non-football event in the broadcaster’s history), which a then 16-year-old Littler lost to Luke Humphries.
Now that he has become world champion, he has earned the right to join the pantheon of youthful sporting legends. Sure, Pele was good at football at 17, but could he throw three treble-20s at a red, green and black board from almost eight feet away?
Serena Williams won the US Open at the age of 17, Ian Thorpe was the same age when he won Olympic gold in the swimming pool, Sachin Tendulkar was 16 when he made his debut in India and snooker wizard Ronnie O’Sullivan was 17 when he won the British Championship won. What sets Littler apart in his particular field is that he became the greatest current player in the world in the entire sport before he came of age.
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Why is he so good? Is it natural talent? Well, he’s been playing darts since his dad bought him a magnetic dartboard at the pound shop when he was 18 months old. He’s not old enough to vote yet, but he’s been practicing for most of his short life.
And it’s not all youthful exuberance and freshness either. Littler was mentally scarred from losing last year’s final despite being 4-2 up (he watched it a few hours before Friday’s match to summarize what went wrong), but he was ruthless and ruthless in his pursuit of victory here in North London, as he bulldozed a 4-0 lead against one of the greatest players to ever throw a dart, three-time champion Michael van Gerwen.
The youngster later said he felt nervous after taking that early lead, but his actions in destroying one of the best players in the world suggested the exact opposite.
Unyielding, he hammered the high bed like he was using a jackhammer the size of an arrow, plowing perfect little holes into the helpless plank as he crafted his journey to greatness.
With the throwing hands of a sports artist, Littler smiled and waved at the crowd, all the while talking to them and himself, completely in control of his own destiny.
Littler surpassed Van Gerwen’s record as the youngest world darts champion in history (James Fearn/Getty Images)
He wasn’t just trying to win, he was trying to produce arrows from the Gods while he was at it. He was left at 170, the biggest darts outshot to win a leg, which happened too often not to be intentional. Darts players normally look pained when they miss a nine-darter (i.e. perfection in darts of winning a leg with the fewest possible number of throws), but Littler shrugged nonchalantly when he missed the seventh dart, as if he knew he would get another chance. .
A powerless Van Gerwen, winner of 157 PDC (Professional Darts Corporation) titles, could only frown and grimace as Dick Dastardly in a lime green shirt.
The Dutchman was once the youngest world champion, aged 24. The symbolism of a heavy arrow-shaped stick passed on to the next generation was irresistible.
Van Gerwen rallied, as champions do, clinging to Littler’s jacket as they exchanged the next six sets, but it would never be enough in front of a frenzied partisan crowd, drunk on booze and throwing. He can give the impression of a combination of Bond villains, part Blofeld with his shiny bald head, part Jaws with a grill over his chops, but he could only play the bad guy against a tidal wave of trebles and barrels for so long.
Littler was just too good. Every time Van Gerwen came up for breath, the teenager pushed him back under the water with one hand and hit double 10 with the other.
“Wow… wow,” Littler said to himself as he welled up having just hit double 16 to win 7-3, confirm the title and become £500,000 ($621,056 at current exchange rates) richer. He muttered “I can’t believe it” three times in his post-match interview.
“When I was 2-0 up I started to get nervous, but I told myself, ‘Just relax’.
“That first match against Ryan Meikle, it was the match that really mattered.”
Littler cried on the podium after that second-round win over Meikle before Christmas. He collapsed, couldn’t finish an interview, left the stage and went to give his mother a hug.
On the train journey to London earlier that day, he couldn’t wait for the match to start, but when he threw his first dart he essentially stopped it, paraphrasing his own words.
“I’ve never felt anything like this,” he said later after composing himself. “It was a strange feeling… it’s the biggest stage there is. It was probably the toughest match I’ve played.”
To prove his otherworldly nature, by the end of that ‘toughest’ match he had somehow produced the best set of darts ever in the history of the world championships, with an average of over 140, but hey, he was started out as a glorified pub player to his own incredibly high standards.
“I think to myself; ‘What are you doing? Just relax,” Littler said.
Littler during his walk to the final against Michael van Gerwen at Alexandra Palace (James Fearn/Getty Images)
It’s no wonder that with the enormous pressure on his young shoulders to be the favorite to win the title at the age of 17, a normal boy from Runcorn, a small town near Liverpool in the northwest of England, who eats kebab and loves football.
He was imperious for almost the entire tournament after that, a reflection of the form that saw him rise from 164th to fourth in the world rankings last year.
Despite the unimaginable increase in money, fame, popularity and exposure, the 1.5 million Instagram followers, the endless television appearances and mixing with Max Verstappen or his heroes at Manchester United, he remained focused and won 10 PDC titles, the Premier League, Grand Slam and World Series finals, plus hitting four perfect nine-darters and earning more than £1 million ($1.2 million) in prize money.
He was the most searched for athlete of the year on Google and runner-up in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
“Littler has captivated people because he is recognisable,” Sky Sports darts presenter Emma Paton said The Athletics earlier in the tournament. “He has taken the sport to different places… Darts has never had so much attention. It’s not even because of what he’s done in the sport, which is ridiculous by the way, but because of the impact he’s had on it.
“Compared to many other athletes, darts players are refreshingly honest and basically just be themselves, and Luke is no different. After all, he’s just a kid.
“People have asked me, ‘What’s it like talking to Luke Littler? It doesn’t seem like he has much to say.’ I’m like, ‘He’s just really laid back, he doesn’t really care, he’s just a 17 year old boy.’
Darts-obsessive Littler plays exactly like that, like a kid having fun on stage and ticking off his own personal bucket list of darts dreams.
He has an uncanny ability to completely detach himself from the enormity of the event, talk to the crowd, ignore his opponent and just play his own game, the old sporting cliché.
He enjoys showing off the skills he’s developed through years of practice, expanding the possibilities and boundaries we previously thought the sport had. He tries irregular setup shots, he hits double-doubles or two bulleyes. He’s essentially bringing the practice board to the world stage.
And then, when necessary, a steely gleam of determination radiates from his eyes and a relentless rhythm of 180s ensues. He can turn it on like few in the sport ever have.
An emotional Littler reacts after winning the PDC World Championship (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
“I sometimes say: every seventeen years a star is born,” said a humble Van Gerwen. “He’s one of them… Every chance he got, every moment he had to hurt me, he did it.”
World champion, famous, millionaire. What’s next, besides impending adulthood?
“I just want to add something to it, maybe a few more,” Littler said. “If I want 16 (Taylor’s world title record), I’m sure I can achieve it.
“I’ve been doing this since I was 18 months old, on a magnetic board and wearing a diaper.
“If I told my friends I had a darts match, they would say, ‘Darts?!’ “Yes, darts, haven’t you seen it?”
They see it all now, thanks to an unassuming 17-year-old boy who can throw darts like few have ever done before.
(Top photo: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)