Luke Littler: Darts star could join Pele, Emma Raducanu and Sachin Tendulkar as a sporting teenage sensation

Luke Littler has captured the imagination of the sporting world with his dream run to the PDC World Darts Championship final, at the age of just 16.

His semi-final win over Rob Cross set a Sky tournament viewing record, with a peak audience of 2.32m, comfortably surpassing the 2015 final (1.65m).

Littler is already the youngest finalist in the tournament’s history by more than four years and victory over Luke Humphries in Wednesday’s final would see him become the youngest winner by some margin.

Michael van Gerwen currently holds that record. The Dutchman was 24 years and nine months old when he won his first title in 2014.

Of course, there have been many teenagers who have become champions in their sports and BBC Sport takes a look at some of the biggest names that Littler could join.

Pele – football

One of the greatest players in the history of the game, Pele was just 17 when he won the first of three World Cups with Brazil. The forward played a starring role, scoring a hat-trick against France in the semi-final before adding two more in a 5-2 win over Sweden in the final.

In more recent times, France star Kylian Mbappe became the second teenager to score in a World Cup final when he helped Didier Deschamps’ side to lift the trophy in 2018, aged 19.

Former England strikers Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney also made spectacular starts to their careers. Owen was 18 and had already won the Premier League golden boot when he scored his memorable solo goal against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup, while 16-year-old Rooney announced himself in the Premier League with a stunning winning goal for Everton against Arsenal in 2002.

Emma Raducanu – tennis

For a qualifier to win a Grand Slam title is some achievement. To do so in their first year on the WTA Tour, without dropping a set and aged 18 is all the more remarkable – but that is what Raducanu managed as she won the 2021 US Open.

In becoming the first British woman to win a Grand Slam since Virginia Wade in 1977, Raducanu added her name to a seemingly ever-growing list of teenage tennis prodigies.

At 16, Martina Hingis secured the record for the youngest ever Grand Slam champion when she won the 1997 Australian Open and then went on to triumph at Wimbledon and the US Open in the same year. Only defeat in the French Open final denied her a clean sweep of Grand Slam titles that year.

Michael Chang holds the men’s record for his French Open success in 1989, aged 17. Boris Becker was also 17, but some 117 days older than Chang, when he won the first of his two teenage Wimbledon titles four years earlier.

Maria Sharapova was 17 when she won Wimbledon in 2004, Serena Williams secured her first US Open title at 19 but all were relative veterans compared to Jennifer Capriati, who was just 14 when she reached the semi-finals at Roland Garros in 1990.

Simone Biles – gymnastics

Biles was just 16 when she competed at the 2013 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp. Despite only making her senior international debut earlier in the year, the American won all-around gold as well as taking top spot in the floor exercise and silver on the vault.

A further eight world golds – and one silver – followed in the next two years before Biles, still only 19, won four Olympic gold medals at the 2016 Rio Games.

That is one more than Nadia Comaneci managed in Montreal 1976, aged 14, but the Romanian was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect 10 at the Olympics and received seven in total that year.

Sachin Tendulkar – cricket

A record-breaking unbroken stand of 664 with Vinod Kambli in a school game brought Tendulkar to the attention of cricket fans across India in 1988 and later that year, aged 15, he became the youngest Indian to score a century on his first class debut – making 100 not out for Bombay against Gujarat in the Ranji Trophy.

The following year he made his Test debut for India in Pakistan with his maiden hundred in the format coming against England in the summer of 1990, when Tendulkar was still only 17.

Lydia Ko – golf

In 2015, Ko rose to number one in the Women’s Golf World Rankings. At 17 years, nine months and nine days, the New Zealander became the youngest golfer, male or female, to top the professional golf rankings.

Later that year, Ko registered the lowest-ever closing round score in a women’s major championship to win the Evan Championship and set a new record as the youngest major champion in the history of the LPGA Tour.

Tiger Woods was 21 when he became the youngest winner of The Masters at Augusta but two years earlier, in 1995, he participated in the event for the first time and was the only amateur to make the cut.

Tom Daley – diving

The diver became Britain’s youngest male Olympian since 1960 when he competed in Beijing in 2008 at the age of 14 and, a year later, he became the country’s first individual diving world champion when he won gold in the 10m platform in Rome. Daley added a bronze in the same event at London 2012.

Katie Ledecky – swimming

American swimmer Ledecky was 15 when she won the 800m freestyle at the 2012 Olympic Games in a national record time. A host of world titles – and world records followed – before Ledecky won four more gold medals at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, breaking her own world records in the 400m and 800m freestyle in the process.

Ronnie O’Sullivan – snooker

Following his victory at the UK Championship in 2023, Ronnie O’Sullivan holds the record as both the youngest and oldest winner of a major title.

O’Sullivan was aged 17 years and 358 days when he won his first ranking title with a 10-6 victory over Stephen Hendry to win the 1993 UK Championship – he still holds the record as the youngest player to win a major title.

He is also the youngest player to win the Masters, snooker’s most prestigious invitational tournament, which he first achieved in 1995, aged 19 years and 69 days.

Sky Brown – skateboarding

Brown made history as Britain’s youngest ever Olympic medallist when she won skateboarding bronze at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics at the age of 13 years and 28 days.

Still only 15, she also won the park event at the 2023 World Skateboarding Championship to become Britain’s first skateboarding world champion.

Mike Tyson – boxing

While Tyson had to wait until he was 20 to win a world title, he was already dominating the heavyweight division prior to that. He had 23 professional bouts as a teenager, winning the lot with all but two of those victories coming by knockout or TKO.

Mia Brookes – snowboarding

Britain’s Mia Brookes became the youngest world champion in snowboarding history by winning women’s slopestyle gold last February – a month after turning 16. It was Britain’s first snowboard slopestyle world title.

Brookes also claimed World Cup silver in both slopestyle and big air in her first season at senior level and was named BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year 2023.