How Ryan Searle who can barely see darts board with eye situation might beat Luke Littler
Ryan Searle has reached his first World Darts Championship semi-final and will take on Luke Littler despite battling a rare genetic condition that limits his vision, meaning he can barely see the board
Ryan Searle booked his place in his first World Darts Championship semi-final where he will take on Luke Littler, despite battling vision problems that stretch barely beyond six feet.
The 38-year-old defeated Jonny Clayton 5-2 in the first quarter-final clash at Alexandra Palace on Thursday, before opening up about his restricted eyesight, which falls short of the oche’s 7ft, 91⁄4ins distance. Nevertheless, Searle, who relies on contact lenses, proved that anything is achievable and aims to motivate others living with Dominant Optic Atrophy (DOA), a hereditary condition he shares with his nine-year-old daughter, Amelia.
Should he land the £1 million top prize, it would represent an extraordinary story. He’s already secured a £200,000 payday for making the final four, though he hopes his impact reaches far beyond the oche.
Searle revealed: “I got the diagnosis sort of 18 months ago but I’ve always had bad vision from when I was really young.
“When I was at secondary school, if I used to sit at the back of the class, I couldn’t see the whiteboard so when it came to copying things off the whiteboard my mate used to copy it off the board and I would copy what he was writing.
“When you can’t see very well you just kind of find ways to get through life. If I can be an inspiration to people that can’t see very well then that means a lot to me.
“My daughter, she struggles really bad with her eyesight, her eyesight lasts up to about 6 feet and then it drops off massively after that. Mine’s kind of similar, I wish the dartboard was about 6 feet away.
“We’re doing some fundraising now, I’ve asked a couple of players for some signed shirts and we’ll raffle them off, try and raise some money for them and Viaplay (streaming service) have mentioned it in a few interviews.
“I did an interview with them a little while back and they’ve managed to raise 15,000 euros which is a lot of money and I’ve been in contact with the people that run the charity and they’re over the moon about it.
“We’ll try and raise as much money as we can for the charity, especially with my daughter suffering like she does with it and that means the world to me.”
Searle revealed how he manages to compete at the highest level despite previously having to ask referees about his score before getting contact lenses due to his poor vision.
He said: “I’ve been to exhibitions in the past where people have come up to me and said their vision in one eye is not as good as the other, what do you do?”.
“Because it’s my right eye that isn’t as good as the left, so I kind of combat that by standing a bit further to the right to try and get my left eye sort of more dominant than the right. I’ve tried to pass that on to people.
“I wear contacts now, they help a tiny bit but they take a bit of the blurriness away. Normal people when they wear glasses it helps them see further and they can focus more. but with my condition it doesn’t help that.
“I wear glasses to practise, I wear contacts to play, it takes away a little bit of the blurriness but it doesn’t improve my vision.”
Searle has been the most impressive player in the World Championships to date as ‘Heavy Metal’ dropped only his first set of the entire tournament against Clayton in the quarter-final.
