Darts star who misplaced to Wasp Whisperer in greatest ever shock turned his again on the game
Mike De Decker did not watch the rest of the world championship, blocked darts on his phone and ‘made some steps…privately’ to rebuild his love for the game after his defeat by Kenyan vet David Munyua
Mike De Decker of Belgium (Image: )
The darts star who lost to the Wasp Whisperer in the world championship’s greatest upset admitted it caused him to turn his back on the sport.
Belgian Mike De Decker, 30, went into his first round match against Kenyan vet David Munyua ranked 18th best on the planet and 1-66 odds-on favourite. But Munyua, 30, who only took up darts three years ago while having a beer with pal, pulled off the biggest shock in the sport’s history – despite fighting off an attack by the Ally Pally wasp which landed on his face mid-match.
The animal expert calmly put it in his pocket and kept it as a good luck charm before releasing it later to ‘go, go, go, go spread the good news’ of his win. Though he lost in the next round David’s win has led to a wave of darts fever hitting Africa where a host of wannabes have taken up the arrows.
But devastated De Decker said the shock caused him to turn his back on the sport. He went to extraordinary lengths to make sure he watched ‘none’ of the rest of the tournament – blocking the sport’s governing body the Professional Darts Corporation, aka PDC, from his phone and computers.
“It hurt too much to watch the worlds,” he told TungstenTales on YouTube.
“You can restrict certain pages on Instagram as well. So I restricted the PDC and all darts-related content pages. Yeah, I just couldn’t look at it. Not only the loss but I’ve been trying to survive Christmas for the last five years and then it’s just not working on that stage and it’s frustrating. I can’t watch the worlds when I’m out.”
De Dekker said the game – which he lost by three sets to two – ‘kind of summed up my year’.
“I had good patches and really bad patches, and that was one of the patches that wasn’t so good,” he said.
“It was kind of funny because I was 2-0 up and I started to get nervous. Then when he got his first set on the board there was something in me that said, ‘yeah… you’re going to lose this’. “And that’s not a good thing to have when you’re 2-0 or 2-1 up.”
The arrows ace said he has had to rebuild himself mentally and now believes he is in a ‘better place’. “It’s in the past and it’s in 2025 so we’ll forget about it,” he said.
“I’ve made some steps that I didn’t think I was ever going to do privately. And it’s been helping out a lot about how to deal with certain stuff and certain moments.
“I’m in a better place with my darts and mentally than last year. I want to do well in every tournament and I just want to be playing well again. I don’t necessarily have to win titles – just the feeling that I’m playing well would be a massive boost after last year.”
