Luke Littler falls victim to an Ally Pally curse as he suffers bizarre injury in quarter-final win
Over the years many great darts players have fallen victim to the same curse at Alexandra Palace, and Luke Littler thinks he's the latest to be hit by it.
The 16-year-old is continuing his stunning rise to prominence after a 5-1 victory over defeating Brendan Dolan 5-1 in the quarter-finals.
Littler has booked himself a meeting with Rob Cross in the semi-finals of the World Darts Championship today (2 January) and there are plenty wondering if he's going to go all the way and win it on his debut.
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He's got the skills and confidence to go all the way into the finals and win, though the last thing he can afford is any sort of distraction from his darts.
Unfortunately he did get some bad luck in his victory over Cross as he appeared to suffer an issue with his throwing arm in the final stages of his 5-1 win.
Commentator John Part spotted and called out the apparent issue during Littler's victory, though it didn't do much to stop him from winning in the end.
Later on, the 16-year-old darts prodigy suggested he might have been the latest person to fall foul of the infamous Ally Pally wasp.
For those not familiar, when darts is on at Alexandra Palace there is sometimes a wasp which inevitably decides to pick on the unlucky player trying to concentrate.
Some players have been stung multiple times during a match by the Ally Pally wasp and Littler reckons the little blighter might have added him to its list of victims.
"Was I stung by a wasp? I don’t know. I saw it flying around. I had to focus and get over the line," he said of him checking his arm for an apparent injury during the quarter-finals.
At this point the Ally Pally wasp shows up so often that some darts fans have wondered if there's one being released intentionally at times to spice up the action.
Other fans have suggested that when Alexandra Palace has the darts on the heat and noise wakes up the wasps from hibernation and they go on the attack.
Naturally they'd pick on the person in the spotlight, and thus many a darts player has felt the sting when the pressure has been on.
Fortunately for Littler he's been doing just fine with the pressure, having booked himself a spot in the semi-final and earned himself a major payday in the process.
A victory in the semi-finals could see the star double his winnings, while going on to win the whole thing would have Littler quintuple what he's currently guaranteed to walk away with now.
Topics: Luke Littler, Sport
Joe Harker