This eight-year-old darts ace may be littler than Luke Littler and can just reach the dartboard, but is already hoping to follow in the footsteps of the teenage sensation.
Chester-le-Street’s Kai ‘On Fire’ Tiffen, eight, threw his first darts when he was just one-and-a-half years old and signed up to an academy aged three.
He’s now a regular stepping up to the oche to compete and is no stranger to hitting the big 180.
He’s even been dubbed the next Luke ‘The Nuke’ Littler by some, after the 17-year-old wonderkid soared to fame earlier this year, but Kai's keen to make a name for himself.
Proud mum, Rachel Smith, 29, a childcare assistant, told The Northern Echo: “We take him to competitions and always have to ask if he can go into places because of his age.
“When I was pregnant I had a psychic look at my scans and he said he would be really good with his hands.
“He’s got a board in his bedroom and downstairs and practices whenever he wants.”
Just last weekend Kai secured a 3-0 final win at a competition in Sunderland including hitting back-to-back 180s, playing five games and losing just two legs of darts to grown men.
He overcame a quarter-final disappointment the week before having joked on the way home he’d win it next time.
“We had a board in the house when we first moved in and my partner Neil and his dad used to have a daft throw. We took it off the wall and my partner left his darts on the side and Kai just picked them up and threw them down. He was about one-and-a-half to two,” Rachel said.
“We tried to buy him the magnetic or soft boards you can get but he used to just cry for the real one.
“We’d put the board on a chair for him to practice and he’d do his own little walk-ons in the living room. That’s when he gave himself the name ‘On Fire’ - he just came out with it one day.
“Someone my cousin knew had a darts academy. It was only for kids over eight, but they said bring him along and see how he gets on, and it went from there.”
Kai, played his first County game up on stage when he was six and has signed up by the Junior Darts Corporation (JDC), but won’t be able to play their competitions until he turns ten.
He could follow in the footsteps of Luke Littler who shot to fame in January reaching the PDC World Darts Championship final before his 17th birthday.
Mum continued: “Kai’s seen Luke in competitions and when he started at the academy they used to play against Luke Littler’s youth team. I think Kai’s over the moon to see him on the telly.
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“As he’s part of the JDC he could really play for England if his averages are high enough. It just depends on how he plays.
“He loves playing and watching darts. We thought he might have lost the excitement for it during lockdown when he couldn’t go out to play but he hasn’t.
“He knows all the players’ names and even if you showed him a dart he would know whose it was.”
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