If there is one person in the world of sports who has left everyone speechless at the start of 2024, it is a 16-year-old English teenager who goes by the name of Luke Littler. In London, before thousands of excited people and with their pints of beer in their hands, the talented boy, already baptized throughout the world as the Messi of darts – although in England they see him more as the Wayne Rooney – reached the final of the world championship held this Wednesday and which the young Briton lost to his compatriot Luke Humphries.
A brilliant emergence that could not have a successful culmination for him on January 3, after Littler swept the tournament round by round until reaching the final round of the contest held at the Alexandra Palace in London. No one explains how Luke Littler has reached that level at such a young age and some even question that he is only 16 years old.
Littler, also known by his nickname 'The Nuck', was born in Runcorn, England, on January 21, 2007, but his aesthetics and corpulence, very similar to the majority of athlete throwers in the discipline , have made the followers of these tournaments doubt about his true age. «Have you bet that I'm not 16 years old? Well, you've lost the bet,” he responded, surprised, to a journalist after one of his last victories in London.
This Wednesday he was one small step away from becoming the best player in the world and pocketing 500,000 pounds as a prize. Just by reaching the final, yes, he has taken 200,000 pounds. Not bad for a 16 year old boy.
With three darts under his arm
Although his talent is innate, Littler's routine and hobbies are not far from those of a teenager his age, or any young person a little older. His breakfast, as he has confessed, is usually always the same. “I eat a ham and cheese omelet for breakfast,” he admits. His hobby is football and he also confesses to being a fast food lover. In fact, after some of his triumphs, he does not hesitate to upload photos of himself eating a kebab to his networks.
His story, however, seemed to predestine him to the sport that he is now beginning to dominate with a depth and tranquility that is unusual for such a young person. And since he published 'The Times', Littler took the first steps from him when he had barely started walking. His father gave them to him when he was 18 months old. Darts adapted to his age and without danger of him getting punctured, but with which his father managed to sow that seed of love for this practice. Therefore, of his 16 years, almost 15 have been spent with darts in his hands.
And as expected, at the age of seven he was already launching himself at a normal-sized target, like the ones any family might have in the garage or in the garden… or in any bar. At the age of nine, as 'The Guardian' published, he enrolled in an academy in a nearby town, and from there and with thousands of hours of practice he has cultivated his precocious talent until he is on the verge of being the best in the world. .
Last year, in August, he was crowned junior world champion against players who were several years older and finished the course competing in professional tournaments and hovering around 160th in the ranking. This Wednesday, between screams and thousands of liters of beer, he tried to make even more history.
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