LUKE LITTLER has enjoyed quite a year.
From Premier League titles to BBC Sports Personality of the Year nominations, the 17-year-old has firmly established himself as one of the most popular rising stars in the UK.
Just over a year ago he burst on to the scene at the World Darts Championship with no expectations on him.
Fast-forward 12 months and Littler is now the favourite to lift the Sid Waddell Trophy this Friday.
Littler arrived at Ally Pally last year as a 66/1 outsider on the back of winning the World Youth Championship.
An unknown quantity to the casual darts viewer, the Nuke became popular for his incredible maturity on the oche.
But away from the stage and the spotlight he continued living the life of any other teenage lad, eating kebabs and playing FIFA on his Xbox.
That was, until, he booked a spot in the Premier League.
As a result of his incredible run at the World Championship – where he beat Christian Kist, Andrew Gilding, Matt Campbell, Raymond van Barneveld, Brendan Dolan and Rob Cross on his way to the final – he immediately became considered among Europe’s elite.
Despite losing 7-4 to Luke Humphries in the final, Littler helped make history by drawing a record audience for Sky Sports.
BELOW is a list of Darts world champions by year.
The list does not include winners from the pre-Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) era or BDO world champions.
That means Raymond van Barneveld, for example, is only listed once – Barney also won four BDO titles – and none of Eric Bristow’s five BDO titles are included.
Most World Titles
Around 4.8million people tuned in to watch the two Lukes do battle on January 3 – making it the the most watched non-football event in the broadcaster’s history.
“I think it’s unprecedented. There’s no comparison,” SunSport’s Phil Lanning said following Littler’s World Darts Championship last 16 win over Ryan Joyce on Monday.
“We talk about within darts what Phil Taylor’s done, but he hasn’t.
“Phil Taylor never took darts out of darts and took it to the mainstream like Luke Littler and changed the demographic overnight.”
After missing out on World Championship glory, Littler silenced his doubters by winning Premier League Darts in May.
He banked £275,000 after defeating Humphries 11-7 at the O2 Arena in London, becoming the youngest champion in the competition’s history.
The Nuke also won the World Series of Darts this year as well as the Bahrain Darts Masters, the Poland Darts Masters, the Belgian Darts Open and the Austrian Darts Open.
As a result, Littler has now banked over £1million in prize money and ranks fourth in the PDC Order of Merit.
He has also penned deals with the likes of Target Darts, boohooMAN and Xbox.
Lanning continued: “I can only think, we’ve used all the comparisons, Emma Raducanu who’s had her moment, but Emma didn’t do that for over a year’s period.
“So it is such an extraordinary situation and we do forget what he’s been through to get to this point. And he’s still doing it.
“And he still could walk away with the biggest title of all in just a couple of days.
“So we’re in extraordinary circumstances here. We can’t explain this in British sport. We’ve had the Rooneys, we’ve had the Michael Owens, we’ve had the Gazzas over the years. I don’t think we’ve had anything quite like this.
“And I think everyone’s still trying to come to terms with it a little bit, that this kid could still go, and he’s still a kid, he’s still under 18 and he can pick up the biggest trophy of all and half a million pounds in just a couple of days’ time.”
Before even throwing a dart at this year’s World Championship, Littler was recognised for his influence on the sport.
The Warrington wonderkid was named the BBC’s Young Sports Personality of the Year two weeks ago, beating skateboarder Sky Brown and para-swimmer William Ellard to the prize.
He also ranked second for the main award, behind Olympic gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson.
The Nuke followed up his awards success with a 3-1 win over Ryan Meikle.
In the next round, he cruised past Ian White in a 4-1 victory.
And he booked a spot in the quarter-finals with a narrow 4-3 win over Ryan Joyce.
Next, Littler faces close friend Nathan Aspinall in a highly-anticipated last-eight clash.
A win there would push him even closer to another historic milestone.
And who would bet against him now?
LUKE LITTLER has taken the darts world by storm since exploding onto the scene at the PDC World Championship at the beginning of the year.
The Nuke reached the final on his Ally Pally debut at just 16 years of age – smashing records along the way.
He has then gone on to win a host of PDC events and the Premier League title – which he claimed at the O2 Arena by beating world champion Luke Humphries in May.
He also finished his first season in the World Series as the No1 ranked player.
He has joined Jude Bellingham on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list.
And the teenage titan even had to snub an invite from the WWE.
The Sun exclusively revealed that Littler is plotting to create a fitness empire.
He is also cashing in away from the Oche thanks to an Instagram side hustle.
And he’s even the face of a brand new cereal.
But he is newly single after splitting from girlfriend Eloise Milburn following a 10-month relationship.
Check out all of our latest Luke Littler stories.
