Luke Littler has paid tribute to Anthony Joshua’s friends who tragically died in a car accident this week, dedicating his consecutive PDC World Darts Championship triumph to their memory. The darts prodigy, following his dominant 7-1 triumph over Gian van Veen in Saturday’s final at Alexandra Palace, paused during his Sky Sports interview to offer his sympathies after Monday’s devastating crash in Nigeria. The incident left Joshua with minor injuries that required hospital treatment.
Tragically, two of his close associates and team members, Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele, perished in the collision. Nigerian police have subsequently charged the vehicle’s driver, Kayode Adeniyi, with offences including causing death by dangerous driving. Speaking after his victory, Littler said: “It feels amazing. First of all thanks to John McDonald and John Noble – what a fantastic career they have had. In my first year Russ Bray retired, now these two legends! I’m a bit late to the party!”
He subsequently addressed the recent tragedy involving the former boxing heavyweight world champion: “I’ve been wanting to say this. Everyone knows what happened with Anthony Joshua and his guy and his team and his friends.
“Just like AJ said ‘the first time was so nice, I had to do it twice!'” By clinching the tournament for the second year running, Littler joins an exclusive club of just four players who have successfully defended their title, and he’s the first to achieve this feat in a decade. The last successful defence was by Gary Anderson back in 2016.
This victory also sees him pocket a record-breaking £1 million in prize money. Reflecting on the match, Littler said: “I started playing a bit better from there (set three), obviously the first set, I wasn’t happy going into the break 1-0 down, but I just had to kick on from there.
“I said to myself again just give it time, you’ll find it. I started off at the left of the oche, I moved over to the right and it all came to plan. Gian, what a tournament, he can be very happy with himself, in every set, he was there, he was behind me and I had to take my chances.”
Regarding the prize money, he commented: “It’s life-changing, even for this tournament, for anyone, it’s been doubled, obviously, the winners, the runners up, the semi-finalists.
“But it’s life changing, absolutely life changing, but this win has increased the gap to Luke Humphries and I’m clear as World number one.”
When quizzed about his first purchase with the winnings, he replied: “I don’t know, I can’t change car yet. We’ll have to see.”