"I've seen and experienced terrible things" - Vincent van der Voort yearns for peace after losing his sister

Vincent van der Voort has decided to take a sabbatical year next year and will only then decide if he will return to professional darts. The 48-year-old Dutchman has been through a particularly nasty period and is yearning for rest.

Van der Voort has not been able to go full time for darts in recent years. "I've had an awful lot of problems privately," he opens up to the podcast Darts Draait Door. "My sister just passed away. She was on a sick bed for a year and a half. I've seen and experienced terrible things. You get distracted by that. I always thought, I'll park that. That's not a problem for me. If I have tournaments, I'll be back there. But I noticed at one point I was completely out of it."

"Then injuries come along with it," Van der Voort continued. "I suffer a lot from gout and a sagging foot, which causes inflammation in my foot. I've been able to play five or six tournaments pain-free this year. At some point you just have to say you have to take a step back. That has to be worked on as well. And then see if I can find the love for the game again. That I really feel like going again. Now it's all dutiful and I'll pass for that."

Van der Voort traveled back and forth to Almere almost every day for the past few months to visit his sister and loved ones. "That was all quite intense. At one point it became too much for me. Instead of being in a race fighting to win, I was often like, I'm all right today. I'm going home."

Because of all these problems, Van der Voort decided to take a sabbatical year, whether he will ever return as a professional dart player is doubtful. "If you ask me now, I say ten percent chance. Because you are completely done with it now. I'm also constantly bothered by my body , something has to be done about that. Going to tournaments every time won't make it better."

Still, Van der Voort wants to remain active. "It's also not that I'm completely quitting darts now. I'm going to throw to the Modus Super Series and some other things. But I have to get the fun back and like what I'm doing."

In recent months, Van der Voort also spoke regularly with ex-top football player Dirk Marcellis, who was appointed mental coach by the TOTO Dart Kings team. "You try to apply things to the sport. But we also talked a lot about private, that's where the biggest problems were. But of course he can't solve that either. I did get a lot out of the conversations. "TOTO Dart Kings also helped me a lot. In terms of performance it went very badly. They could also have said, we have to get rid of that as soon as possible. They didn't and they took good care of me."

For Van der Voort, the last few months have also been an adjustment to a new situation. "I was always used to with darts that everything revolves around me. At home it revolves around me, wherever I go, it revolves around me, because I have to perform. All at once I was busy helping more and more other people. That makes sense, because it's about your own family or your friends. Then you start helping."

"I was moving the bar. I was increasingly being the helping hand instead of being about me and I was cutting myself off," Van der Voort continued. "I haven't done that very often in 48 years. That was a whole new sensation. Dirk did remind me, no matter how bad and how selfish it is sometimes, you have to choose for yourself once in a while. That did help me a lot."

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