If you watch a lot of sports, you probably know most of tomorrow's promising young stars. But what if we told you there's one you probably haven't heard of? Introducing darts' new superstar, 16-year-old Luke Littler. Littler, ranked 164th in the world, qualified for the 2024 World Championships by winning the PDC Youth Development Tour in November. His reward was a first-round championship match against former world champion Christian Kinst. Littler completely crushed Kinst, winning 3-0 and becoming an instant sensation.
Since then, the normally raucous event has turned into complete chaos every time Littler has won. In the quarterfinals, he defeated five-time world champion Raymond Van Barneveld. The drunkest crowd I've ever seen “School starts in the morning,” we chanted. On Tuesday, Luke defeated another former world champion and current No. 8 Rob Cross to become the youngest player to reach a world championship final.
Once again, teenagers, not yet old enough to set foot in a pub, are at the pinnacle of the sport of darts.
Littler's three-dart average of 106.05 in the semi-finals was one of the best in tournament history for that round and the best of any round in this year's tournament. He has recorded his 50th 180 to date and has dominated everyone he has ever faced (3-0, 3-1, 4-1, 4-1, 5-1, 6 -2), and most importantly, love to celebrate with kebabs.A shop in London even made an offer to him. Free kebabs for life If he takes home the trophy on Wednesday.
To find out just how historic this run is, I sought out an expert and found one. guardian and their sportswriter Rob Smith. I wrote a live blog about the semi-finals. on tuesday:
we have never seen anything like it. I've never seen anything that even vaguely reminds me… If you are a beginner darts player, we recommend that you start playing snooker. There's nothing for you here, and there won't be for the next 30 years.
Not since Tiger Woods has a young athlete been talked about like this. The way those leaving Alexandra Palace raved about him, you might think they had just seen LeBron James at St. Vincent and St. Louis. Mary.
Luke Littler will face No. 1 ranked Luke Humphries in the PDC World Championship Finals on Wednesday at 8pm GMT, 12pm PT, 3pm ET.
