Darts fairy tale
71-year-old senior defies former world champion
Updated 12/22/2025 – 11:38 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
At 71, Paul Lim becomes the oldest winner of a game in the history of the World Darts Championship. Now he is clearly eliminated. The run of the outsider from Kenya is also over.
The Darts World Cup has two special attractions just before Christmas. A few hours after Kenya’s David Munyua was eliminated, senior Paul Lim also clearly lost in London. The 71-year-old from Singapore did his best against Luke Humphries, but he lost 3-0 to the excellent former world champion from England and thus missed a historic place in the third round.
At the start of the World Cup, Lim sensationally won 3-1 against Swede Jeffrey de Graaf and made World Cup history as the oldest winner. However, the veteran had no chance against Humphries, the 2024 world champion, and only won one leg.
The Englishman successfully took revenge for the 2021 World Cup, when he lost 3-2 to Lim after leading 2-0. Humphries will face Germany’s Gabriel Clemens, who beat Wessel Nijman from the Netherlands 3-0 in the afternoon, in round three after Christmas.
The path of debutant Munyua, who gave Kenya its first victory at a World Cup last week, also ended in the afternoon. With the 3-2 win against fellow Belgian favorite Mike de Decker in round one, Munyua attracted so much attention that Kenya’s President sent congratulations to London.
His first appearance was all the more spectacular because he miscalculated several times – and still left the stage as the winner in the close duel. In round two it was quickly over against the Dutchman Kevin Doets. With a clear 0:3, the vet from Kenya only won two legs.
Round three begins on December 27th. Arno Merk will be the last German before Christmas to play against Scotsman Peter Wright on Tuesday (4.30 p.m./Sport1 and DAZN). Already in round three are Ricardo Pietreczko, Martin Schindler and the former World Cup semi-finalist Clemens.