Thread: Luke " The Nuke" Littler

GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,Luke Littler has become a sensation at the 2023-24 PDC Darts World Championship


By Jonty Colman
BBC Sport





Luke Littler has taken the PDC Darts World Championship by storm on his debut, aged just 16.
On Tuesday he is hoping to extend his fairytale run against 2018 world champion Rob Cross in the semi-finals at Alexandra Palace in London.
Victory would see him secure a place in an all-England final against Luke Humphries or Scott Williams on Wednesday.
Littler has already eliminated some big names and pocketed £100,000 for his progress so far. If he goes all the way and wins the tournament, he would earn £500,000.
He has made history by getting this far and has the potential to create some more: the current youngest World Championship finalist is Kirk Shepherd who was 21 years and 88 days in 2008. The youngest winner is Michael van Gerwen, who was 24 years and nine months when he won his first title in 2014.
BBC Sport takes a detailed look at the sport's brightest young star.

Luke Littler - the 16-year-old who is changing darts at PDC World Championship - BBC Sport

Get onit now!

The comments are mental..

Rob Cross v Luke Littler Live Stream | 2023 PDC World Darts Championship Full Game - YouTube

Teenager Luke Littler's sensational run at the PDC World Darts Championship continued as the 16-year-old beat Rob Cross to storm into the final.
Littler, playing in the tournament for the first time, lost the first set but recovered to win 6-2.
Littler, who has now earned £200,000, is the youngest person to reach the final, overtaking Kirk Shepherd who was 21 years and 88 days old in 2008.
"It is crazy to even think I am in the final on my debut," he said.
Littler told Sky Sports: "I was happy to win one game and now I can go all the way. It's not easy. You are playing Rob, he is a world champion who won on debut. I've got no words."
Asked about his preparation for Wednesday's final, Littler added: "I'll be doing what I've been doing. In the morning I'll go for my ham and cheese omelette and then come here, have a pizza and then prep on the board. That is what I've done every day."​

He's certainly got the right physique for a darts player. Must have trained hard to get such an unathletic body.

Originally Posted by Joe 90

PDC Darts World Championship

I prefer this World Championship.

Originally Posted by Troy

He's certainly got the right physique for a darts player. Must have trained hard to get such an unathletic body.

He looks about 40.

Originally Posted by cyrille

He looks about 40.

Stone.

Rebranding darts as serious enterprise is stroke of genius but it is still not real sport.

Comparing Luke Littler to Tiger Woods is absurd as the teenage darts sensation does not lead the life of a professional athlete

OLIVER BROWN
CHIEF SPORTS WRITER
2 January 2024 • 4:41pm
Oliver Brown


The point at which the Luke Littler phenomenon slipped the moorings of reality was when he began drawing parallels with Tiger Woods. Barry Hearn, fond of characterising darts as the “working man’s golf”, appears convinced that the swathe the teenager has torn across this year’s world championship represents a Tiger moment for our times.

At 75, Hearn has lost none of his twinkly salesman’s patter. But his latest comparison is as overwrought as Sid Waddell likening the noise at an Eric Bristow match to the sounds of Pompeii being swamped in lava – and about as plausible.

Woods, converting the “hello world” hype of his first Nike advert into a record 12-stroke Masters triumph at 21, became an athlete for the ages. The operative word here is athlete, with Woods shredding the preconceptions of his sport through his dedication to fitness. By 1997, he would start his mornings by running four miles and lifting weights. In the afternoons, he would hit the range for two hours and play 18 holes, before running another four miles by sundown. This was perfectionism with a purpose, as he turned up at Augusta and swatted the ball 25 yards further than anyone else in the field.

You struggle to envisage a similar performance benefit in darts. As if to prove the point, Littler, 16, has described his own daily regime thus: “Wake up, play on my Xbox, have some food, have a chuck on the board, go to bed. That’s it.”

He has been celebrating his victories at Alexandra Palace with kebabs and Cokes. All of this adds, naturally, to the relatability of the Littler story, to the Boys’ Own adventure of a teenager earning a six-figure cheque and promising to put it towards a trip to Alton Towers. His is a success worthy of the widest celebration. What he does not warrant is a place on the same pedestal as Pele, Woods, Mike Tyson, or all the other wunderkinds whose feats involved physical sacrifice.

‘It’s tiddlywinks in a bearpit’

Darts’ credentials to be called a sport have been endlessly disputed, even by those wedded to its original spit-and-sawdust charms. The late Martin Amis wove every facet of darts culture into his novel London Fields, viewing the game as the “crudest possible form of human striving” and reputedly naming central protagonist Keith Talent after Keith Deller, the 1983 world champion. In trying to explain why he fell in love with this world, he said: “On a tiny scale, it is elemental. It’s really tiddlywinks in a bearpit.”

It is a cute line, but if you are going to use tiddlywinks as your point of reference, has the argument for sporting recognition not already been lost?

At one level, darts has moved on from this debate. In 2005, the English Institute of Sport bestowed the kudos to which the nation’s tungsten-throwers had long aspired, officially designating their pastime as a sport. Amid the euphoria, Martin Adams bracketed himself with Geoff Capes, the former world’s strongest man, saying: “He stood still and hurled lumps of metal. If he can be a sporting hero, so can I.”

Phil Taylor would later reflect that he treasured his second place as BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2010 more than any of his 16 world titles.

But in another sense, the debate over darts’ borderline status between sport and pub hobby has never gone away. No sooner did it secure sporting legitimacy than bridge mounted a legal challenge to demand the same. And with the rise of Littler, its true essence comes under renewed scrutiny, for the simple reason that none of his fundamentals, from training to diet, conform to what we expect of a sporting prodigy.

The videos uploaded by his sister of Littler in a nappy, throwing darts at a magnetic board, are testament to how seriously he takes his craft. But this is not a prowess built on physical endeavour. It is the mastery and memorisation of a fine motor skill, to the point where he can repeatedly bunch three arrows in the treble 20 bed at will. All of which is admirable, especially when performing in front of thousands of sozzled punters.

Luke Littler in action against Brendan Dolan
British 16-year-old Luke Littler has lit up the World Darts Championship... CREDIT: PA/Zac Goodwin
Luke Littler leaves the stage after winning his quarter-final tie at the World Darts Championship
... but he has never claimed his prowess is built on physical endeavour CREDIT: Shutterstock/David Cliff
But as for all the breathless linking of Littler with Nadia Comaneci, Jennifer Capriati and the other teenage stars who astounded with their physical virtuosity? Forget it. I tend to lean towards the view of Rob Bonnet, the BBC sports correspondent who, despite his employer’s popularising of darts pre-Sky, once said: “Darts won’t be a sport until the players need to do more than bend their right arms and wear a path between oche and board.”

Darts might now be a lavish global business, but its leading practitioners are no less pictures of health than when Steve Beaton laboured under the nickname of “Bronzed Adonis”. Raymond van Barneveld ballooned out to 21 stone before committing to lose weight. Adrian Lewis alleged that he was called a “fat something” by Gerwyn Price mid-match.

Once, these comfortably-upholstered physiques were the product of heavy drinking, as immortalised in the Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch of Dai “Fat Belly” Gutbucket reaching down for a double vodka and treble Bacardi. Now, they owe more to top players’ itinerant lifestyles, with Gary Anderson admitting that one of his main challenges on tour is avoiding airport fast food.

It has been a stroke of genius to rebrand darts as a serious physical enterprise. But you wonder, given the shape of many of its stars, how far it has evolved from the days of the Indoor League on Yorkshire Television, when Fred Trueman would show it alongside games of skittles, cribbage and shove ha’penny. If Littler is going to be prematurely placed in a sporting pantheon, then some measure of athleticism, however modest, should surely be a prerequisite.
DAILY TELEGRAPH

interesting take on the "sport" of darts, but then snooker is certainly seen as a "proper" sport and there is liitle athleticism involved in that. darts may not need athleticism, but to stand up and perform well repeatedly in front of huge crowds does require something special.

The Luke the Nuke Vs Cool Hand Luke final highlights..



Definitely put Darts back on the sporting compass.

As I remember it, a compass has NESW.

Originally Posted by cyrille

He looks about 40.

The spitting image of Johnny Vegas

So he's not the Boris Becker of Darts after all.

Maybe they will lay off his 21 year old girlfriend now.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

So he's not the Boris Becker of Darts after all.

More like the Arsenal.

Should take reaching the final on his debut as a win and gain confidence from it. Media hype has killed off many hopefuls in all games and sports.

A gf 200 grand , a liked celebrrity with a fantastic nick name he's double tops already

Originally Posted by Edmond

More like the Arsenal.

Why you.....

Originally Posted by david44

fantastic nick name

Me mate's nickname is Tom the Bomb. Not cause he's lively, or a member of the IRA, his main hobby was blowing shit up with bottles of petrol at age 15.

Well the plucky lad lost, so he will be in for BBC sports personality of the year and maybe an OBE!

Originally Posted by britanicus123

Well the plucky lad lost, so he will be in for BBC sports personality of the year and maybe an OBE!

Quite right for runners up like us, imagine had he won a Hi-So gf and a thatched BMW!!

It can’t possibly be classed as a sport!

The USA doesn’t have a World Series for it!

.....

^^ Darts isn't a sport, it's a game.

A sport where you play games ?