by The hot, ashy aftermath of a world championship final is a great time to reflect and celebrate, but a terrible time to make predictions. It’s a long old season, most of the big prizes are being reloaded towards the end, and a lot can happen in those early months with place holders, some relevant and some not is.
Meanwhile, the recency bias is still strong in this one. What happens in the Palace often stays in the Palace. This time last year many people were talking about how Michael Smith had finally cracked the code and after winning his first world title he could go on to dominate the sport for the years to come. This new era was often portrayed as a duplicate of the finals hit Michael van Gerwen, who would return hungrier than ever. This time last year the rise of Gabriel Clemens, Germany’s first World Cup semi-finalist, felt inevitable. This time last year there was a lot of buzz about how 2023 would be the year of Josh Rock.
Related: Butlin’s and Berlin: what next for Luke Littler after darts heroics?
None of them happened, in the end. Smith won a Euro Tour event and had a few good nights in the Premier League, but basically looked like an emaciated shadow of the player who took big-time darts to a whole new level during the unforgettable final. Van Gerwen has won Premier League and World Series of Darts finals, has been heralded as “back” on about half a dozen separate occasions, but has hardly looked more vulnerable or vulnerable in the meantime. Clemens played just like the top-20 fringe player he was, and instead Ricardo Pietreczko and Martin Schindler established themselves as a rallying force in the sport’s biggest emerging market. Rock, as usual, denies it will happen because of his occasional flashes of true class.
All of this adds an important note, perhaps even a blunt warning, to the victorious Luke Humphries as he enters the most vibrant and turbulent year of his life. It is a well-worn cliche for first-time world champions to describe winning their maiden title as “the hard part”. But if recent history is any guide, probably not. Humphries may feel he has climbed his Everest when he defeated darting freak Luke Littler on Wednesday night. What awaits him now, however, is an entirely different order of challenges.
It’s not just the extra demands on your time, whether it’s the distant events of the World Series or the Premier League or the many promotional and ambassadorial engagements, the photos and video content, the basic requirement to survive in your darts shirt for a whole year.
It’s not just that a veneer has been put on the awarded reputation that gives opponents extra motivation against you. To a certain extent it is as good as the expectation you set for yourself; to play the responsibility “like a world champion”, rather than the man who became a world champion.
These may help explain why none of the eight champions who came before Humphries were able to retain the trophy. It’s been four years since a defending champion even made it past the quarter finals. The great Van Gerwen has never won two in a row. Smith struggled with the load last year and could be a rejuvenated player with the target on his back. The two-year staggered rolling system allows players to feast on past glory long after the form that spawned them has faded from memory. So how does Humphries avoid the championship curse? Maybe doing the opposite: wiping the slate clean and starting again from scratch.
Meanwhile, his beaten opponent may be the most exciting unknown to emerge from this or any world championship. Littler may not know much about life but he already knows pretty much everything there is to know about darts. He has had this sport in his bloodstream before he could walk.
He knows its history and its pitfalls. He knows this is a simple game at best. And there was exceptional maturity in the work when he admitted that it could be another ten years before he reaches another final. Ironically, Littler’s awareness of his own impermanence may be his best defense against it.
The Premier League is obviously a calculated risk, allowing his new rivals to explore his weaknesses, reducing his chances of accumulating the Pro Tour points he will need to move up from his current ranking of No. 31 and qualify for the major competitions. in the second half of the year.
But let’s be real: he’s good enough to succeed in almost any path he chooses. The really interesting question is how he deals with that first slump, the inevitable first failure in a sport where the best players are constantly playing each other under varying levels of scrutiny.
Outside of the two Lukes, the most interesting stories lie on the fringes of the elite. Is Peter Wright in a temporary slough or terminally ill? Can Jonny Clayton recover his best self? What would it take to get Dimitri Van den Bergh back on track? Can Ross Smith, Ryan Searle or Stephen Bunting make the big leap? Will this finally be Dave Chisnall’s year?
Nobody knows, of course. This is the sport still stubbornly challenging to analysis or deconstruction, a sport of pure vibes, in a way that is the basis of the appeal.
Wednesday’s final attracted a television audience of almost five million in the UK and nearly three million in Germany, and it already feels like a new era for a sport that will continue to grow, continue to cut through, continue to reaching areas of culture that the second Luke would never give darts. Yes, it’s a bad time to make predictions. But at least this one feels safe.
