{"id":349037,"date":"2026-01-03T00:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T00:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/349037\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T00:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T00:23:08","slug":"world-darts-championship-2026-semi-final-recap-luke-littler-gian-van-veen-win-semi-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/349037\/","title":{"rendered":"World Darts Championship 2026 semi-final recap: Luke Littler & Gian van Veen win semi-finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘It’s not even a dream coming true, I wasn’t able to dream of this’published at 23:09 GMT 2 January<\/p>\n

23:09 GMT 2 January<\/p>\n

Result: Van Veen 6-3 Anderson<\/p>\n

\"GianImage source, Getty Images<\/p>\n

Gian van Veen, speaking to Sky Sports after reaching his first World Championship final:<\/p>\n

“Gary threw everything at me. I felt comfortable up here. Of course the crowd are against me but it’s fair enough, Gary is such a great player.<\/p>\n

“Ten years ago or five years ago, whatever it was, [I was] struggling playing darts. I remember three or four years ago I was in Barnsley at the Metrodome struggling with dartitis and crying at a table. Now look at me four years later. It’s all been worth it.<\/p>\n

“All the people who have worked so hard for me, even my parents when I was 12 or 13 driving me everywhere in the Netherlands to all the tournaments. It’s all been worth it because here we are – unbelievable.”<\/p>\n

On his dartitis struggles: “As everyone knows, I’ve struggled with dartitis for many years, I never thought this was going to happen. It’s not even a dream coming true, because I wasn’t able to dream about this.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘It’s not even a dream coming true, I wasn’t able to dream of this’published at 23:09 GMT 2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-349037","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\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}