Former Tafelsig resident Charles Losper, 53, now living in Kuils River, was crowned “Last Man Standing” at the annual darts competition in Goodwood, at the weekend.
The three-day competition, established in 2017 by SA professional darts player Devon Petersen, from Portland, featured 128 players from across the city and country, and even neighbouring states such as Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia.
Speaking from the UK, where he is based, Petersen said the aim of the competition was to create opportunities for players to make their darting dreams come true.
Petersen, who plies his trade on the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) European circuit, said the organisation wanted to acquire an African representative on the international stage and provide opportunities for players from the continent.
As a youngster, said Losper, Petersen had spent hours at his place in Tafelsig, working on his game.
Now it has come full circle as he’ll be joining Petersen on the PDC stage.
The weekend’s action kicked off on Friday with the first round of 64. Ultimately, it came down to the final rounds where Losper faced off against Carl Gabriel from Gauteng, for a spot of playing at the Alexander Palace, in London, in December, and competing against top players from around the globe.
No stranger to competing at international level, Losper knows Alexander Palace very well as he played there in 2007 and 2008.
However, he had his work cut out going into the weekend’s competition as he came up against a pool of top-notch players, including the much younger Gabriel and last year’s winner, Strandfontein’s Cameron Carolissen, another bright prospect on the darts horizon.
“It was nerve-wracking as I knew very well the type of players I was up against,” Losper said.
“For the first time since 2012, I was very nervous going into the competition. “But like I always tell younger players, if you want to win, you must say it in your mind. That’s exactly what he did and the rest as they say, is history. “Now the real work begins, he said, as I have very little time to prepare for the competition which starts in just over a month,” he said.
Tournament convenor, Nicole Alcock described the weekend’s competition as the one of the best tournaments, despite matches being interrupted by a bout of loadshedding on the final day of play. “From a darts perspective, we saw some of the best darts being played,” she said. “Everything went very well,”
