Luke Littler nominated for prestigious sporting breakthrough award in darting first
PDCTuesday, 03 March 2026 at 12:00
Luke Littler has been recognised with a nomination for the prestigious Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year Award. He will go up against such sporting icons as Lando Norris for the award after a stellar 12 months for 'The Nuke'.
Littler has had an outstanding 12 months in which he lifted six televised major titles which included becoming the World Champion for the first time and was crowned World No.1. He defended the Sid Waddell Trophy in January 2026 and has been shortlisted as such as in the World Breakthrough category.
He will battle Norris among others who is the reigning Formula One Driver's World Champion when the awards take place on Monday April 20. Whether he attends is another matter given that he will play in Liverpool in the Premier League Darts that week.
But thankfully for him ironically also given his ProTour exile, he will not have to play that week in that regard with only a European Tour the weekend before so he potentially will attend the ceremony.
Joins prestigious company
Paris Saint-Germain and France midfielder Désiré Doué, Brazilian tennis player Joao Fonseca, Canadian basketballer Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 12-year-old Chinese swimmer Yu Zidi are also among those who are on the shortlist.
He becomes the first darts player to be nominated for the World Youth Breakthrough of the Year Award which places him in esteemed company. Previous winners of the award include tennis icons such as Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Carlos Alcaraz.
Rory McIlroy is one of six golfers to claim the coveted prize.
Rory McIlroy is one of six golfers to claim the coveted prize.
Luke Littler will be nominated for a Laureus award.
Lewis Hamilton who has won seven Formula One Drivers Championships won the award in 2008 with Jude Bellingham and Lamine Yamal who play for Real Madrid and Barcelona winning the award in recent years.
Littler continues to make his stunning breakthrough as darts continues to go on a tear throughout the sporting world and he makes history once more with yet another accolade whether he wins or not to add to the collection.
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- ah ok, that helps put it in context, cheersMrMarkWatsonnonotthatone28-02-2026
- Any IDeaS.....richieburnettrocks28-02-2026
- I deserve it I am the greatest I am the people's champion I believe I will win the Premier League because I believe I am the best because honestly I am the people's champion and I honestly made the fans come tonight because I am honestly the greatest and I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Oh shut up you pathetic pandering hideously ugly fat waste of space! Fatty Bunting should be more sincere and humbly accept he needed that instead of I this and I that.richieburnettrocks28-02-2026
- Wright's wife DEMANDS he continues so IT can rook every last penny from him. Commentary beckons.richieburnettrocks28-02-2026
- i can't answer this definitively, but i can make some suggestions. firstly, these are essentially just glorified qualifiers for TV events which double as helping the lesser players on tour make a living, but they aren't really considered that significant. they weren't even streamed until the past decade or so. most casual fans don't even know they exist and getting an audience in might be difficult. i'm assuming they're currently quite cheap to run and they would need to sell a lot of tickets to justify opening them up into more of a spectacle. they're held on weekdays when most people are at work anyway and there's no room on the calendar to put most of them on weekends. the logistics of presenting it to an audience would also be tricky given that they have to get through 7 rounds containing 128 players in a single day, using loads of stages simultaneously. maybe the uk open could be used as a template but it'd need to be even more condensed into a short time period, and even with the uk open it's hard to follow most of the games. the venues they're currently held at wouldn't cater for turning this into a public event as they're pretty small, so they'd need to hire much bigger venues 30 times in places around the country. it just probably isn't feasible. i also suspect the players don't really want to play in front of drunk audiences in every single domestic tournament, they already have the euro tour, world series and majors for that. the players championship is basically a way for players to demonstrate they're ready to make the step up to those levels of competition.colt26-02-2026
- Hi, can someone explain why the Players Championship takes place behind closed doors? I've been watching the big championships on and off for decades, but only just started taking a keener interest in the game, and this strange looking competition is a bit of a head scratcher to me at the moment.MrMarkWatsonnonotthatone25-02-2026
- Not Noppy. Get Beau in.medinabello25-02-2026
- If I was noppert,I'd say,sod you lot. You don't think I'm good enough,but suddenly,I can be a replacement? What a load of rubbish. Either you're in,or not. I keep saying,it's a pointless league,just to get people on seats,and beer down their necks. Scrap the whole thingrick6724-02-2026
- Exactly! Did the Glasgow punters get a partial refund for missing out on a potentially explosive match up? I don't know but I doubt it. Given the existing set up, how about this? Four reserves, one European based player to cover the four overseas rounds (including Dublin) and three UK based players to cover four UK rounds each (including Belfast). If the number of continental rounds changed to four for instance then Dublin could be transferred to the UK players allocation for convenience. All reserves should have their travel and accommodation costs covered and to make it worth their while, if they are not used, the reserve could play a match with a LOCAL non tour card holding player between the semi finals and final. This local player would be chosen by a prior qualifying tournament. The prize for this game could be £/euros 1000 or 2000 as the reserve could be spending his time and effort doing an exhibition instead not that I know what the commercial rate for an exhibition is! If the reserve is used in the main competition then the winner and the runner up of the qualifier can play. This could generate additional local interest and publicity. Obviously this doesn't cover every "what if" scenario i.e. What if two main players pull out? Maybe a second of the four reserves could be chosen at random? What do you think?OldShakey23-02-2026
- what a load of crocmedinabello19-02-2026
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