With the World Darts Championship final taking place tonight (3 January), it means it’s been roughly a year since Luke Littler broke through as a household name.
And to be honest, it’s almost hard to imagine the sport in the UK without him now - at least to those of us on the outside of it.
The Nuke’s consecutive year in the final comes after a dazzling debut season and a string of titles.
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But having raked in an incredible amount of cash from the sport so far, Littler explained what he would be doing now if he hadn’t gotten into it in the first place.
To be fair, the lad’s only 17 so it’d really be early days for starting off in most careers anyway.
So it might not come as a total surprise that Littler revealed to The Telegraph whether there’s any Plan B in his mind: “A back-up? Not really.”
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With his 18th birthday coming up this month, he continued: “I was just focused on darts. If it didn’t go to plan, I’d probably just be in college with my mates. Luckily for myself I’m here.”
And honestly, fair enough to him. Can you imagine being asked what your backup career would be when you were still in sixth form?
Looking back on those two weeks of the last World Championship when he suddenly became the most recognisable teen in the UK, Littler described it as ‘crazy’.
Following that final, he escaped off to a secret location in Wales to have some time out.
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As we know, it’s been pretty crazy since then too, with his own celebrity fans, invites to world stages, TV appearances, BBC’s Young Sports Personality of the Year win and his continued darts success.
But he seems to have been unchanged by the fame and kept his cool as he said: “No one has really told me how to be me - I’m just myself.”
That’s well reflected in his preparation for a tournament like this, as it sounds like the average day of most lads his age.
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“A lot of sleep, practice, Xbox, chill out. An hour to an-hour-and-a-half [a day] on the board. Keep the arm loose,’ Littler explained. “[But] mostly just chilling… [see] some mates… go out with them sometimes, otherwise just chilling in my bedroom on my own, playing my game, on my phone.”
The 2024/25 PDC World Darts Championship final takes place tonight at Alexandra Palace.
Topics: Luke Littler, Sport
Jess Battison