By Zavie Goutorbe, Fourth Year, Physics with Study Abroad
And then there was one: the man simply superior to the rest of the playing field, Luke “The Nuke” Littler.
The quality of contests throughout the fortnight of the PDC World Darts Championships is a vindication of the decision to expand this year’s draw size to 128 players. Ultimately, none could match Littler, who lost only four sets in seven matches en route to his tournament victory.
The final was a 7-1 procession, whereupon having lost the first set, Littler stormed past Gian van Veen, dropping merely 3 of the final 24 legs and repeating the outcome of their 2023 World Youth Championship encounter, won 6-4 by Littler. It had been hyped as a clash of polar opposites, and to the extent to which these simplifications are helpful, on the night it was Littler’s darts intuition that overpowered the intellectual van Veen, an aviation engineering graduate.
In claiming the top prize, Littler became the first man since Gary Anderson in 2016 to earn back-to-back world titles. With darts rankings determined by accumulated prize money, Littler’s achievement as the first world champion to earn £1m, twenty per cent of the overall pot, means an extension of his lead as the World No 1 in the PDC Order of Merit over second-ranked Luke Humphries. Littler was nominated for the Sports Personality of the Year Award for the second time in a row, and in an agreement announced a week after Littler’s triumph, the 18-year-old’s impact on the darts scene was rewarded with a 10-year sponsorship deal in association with Target Darts worth £20m, further reinforcing his value as a brand. The continued financial growth of darts as a sport, albeit not insignificantly due to Littler’s emergence as a celebrity, ought also to be highlighted.
Fresh from receiving an MBE, Humphries was disposed of by tenth seed van Veen in the quarter-finals, and the latter is now on a run of five consecutive wins over “Cool Hand”, the 2024 World Champion, including a stunning victory in the final of the most recent European Championship. The Dutchman went on to defeat now 55-year-old Anderson in a captivating semi-final encounter of the highest quality before falling short versus Littler.
Van Veen’s accomplishments are particularly exceptional when put into context: there was a period during his junior career when he suffered with 'dartitis', a mental struggle that affects the player’s release of their dart, which can derail or entirely destroy the careers of darts players. The 23-year-old’s surge to the final means he moves up to third in the order of merit, duly surpassing the three-time world champion Michael van Gerwen to become the highest ranked Dutch player, and thereby earning himself a place in the Premier League. Littler, Humphries, van Gerwen, Stephen Bunting, Jonny Clayton, Gerwyn Price and Josh Rock will comprise the remainder of the eight-man lineup.
Further heroic performances at Alexandra Palace were on display by the South West’s very own Ryan Searle and Justin Hood, from Tiverton and Glastonbury respectively. Despite suffering from a rare genetic eye condition called Autosomal Dominant Optic Atrophy, which is incurable and sometimes means he cannot see what he has scored, the talismanic Searle reached the quarter-finals without losing a set. The man nicknamed “Heavy Metal” then went on to beat Clayton 5-2, before Littler proved too strong in the semi-finals. Searle’s run moves him up to eighth in the rankings, and he can consider himself unlucky not to have been awarded a Premier League wildcard instead of the likes of Price or Rock.
As for “Happy Feet” Hood, who arrived in London ranked 86th, it was a debut Championships to remember. Sixth-seeded Danny Noppert was the second to fall to the 5ft4in former night porter in an epic match decided by a sudden death leg. Hood went on to showcase record-breaking clinical finishing with eleven out of eleven doubles against Rock in the last-16, and an astonishing overall match checkout rate of 75%, resulting in a 4-0 thrashing in the new fan favourite’s favour. Although Hood was unable to best “The Flying Scotsman” Anderson in the quarter-finals, he has hinted at plans to open a Chinese takeaway with his six-figure winnings. [17][18][19]
The challenges mounted and overcome during the 2026 World Championships provided plenty of thrills, along with a bevy of candidates to joust with Littler for years to come. For now, however, “The Nuke” reigns supreme, a God of Darts amongst mere mortals.
Do you think that Littler deserves a SPOTY after this performance?
Featured image:Instagram/ @lukethenukelittler
