{"id":223531,"date":"2026-01-02T14:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/223531\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T14:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:08:07","slug":"world-darts-championship-luke-littlers-semi-final-opponent-ryan-searle-on-rare-eye-condition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/223531\/","title":{"rendered":"World Darts Championship: Luke Littler&#8217;s semi-final opponent Ryan Searle on rare eye condition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On particularly bad days, Searle is unable to see where his darts land but he hopes his tale can serve as an inspiration to other sufferers. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was only in the last 18 months that I realised what the diagnosis was,&#8221; said Searle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s been bad for as long as I can remember.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There&#8217;s no cure for what I&#8217;ve got so I&#8217;m stuck with it. I wear contact lenses now to try and take a bit of the blurriness away from my vision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But sometimes on stage I&#8217;m asking the caller what I&#8217;ve scored and it puts me in a bit of a difficult position.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If I can inspire people that maybe can&#8217;t see as well to pick up the game, then it means a lot to me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Last week, Littler revealed he had surgery as a child to correct his eyesight. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 18-year-old was treated at Warrington Hospital to repair strabismus &#8211; a condition where the eyes do not align.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Searle has raised more than \u00a310,000 for the Cure ADOA Foundation and has asked some of his opponents in the tournament so far to donate shirts to raffle off to raise more money. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He hopes that a cure can be found so that his daughter, who is registered as visually impaired, can drive a car when she&#8217;s older. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a hereditary condition, so I&#8217;ve passed it to both of my children,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;My son doesn&#8217;t have it as bad as as me, but my daughter has it really bad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When it gets to about six feet, she can see, but after that her vision gets really bad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;So, if I can raise a lot of awareness for that and try and find a cure for it, that means a lot to me.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On particularly bad days, Searle is unable to see where his darts land but he hopes his tale&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-223531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}