His very personal adventure began when the doorbell rang the end of the seventh lesson on Tuesday afternoon at a Frankfurt grammar school.

Packing suitcases, another Covid-19 antigen rapid test, pizza dinner with friends in the evening and one last night at home in the Preungesheim district.

Michael Wittershagen

Responsible for sports in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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On Wednesday morning Fabian Schmutzler flew to London with his parents and his best friend. On Thursday evening, the student will transform into “The Fabolous Fab”, as he calls himself, and will be on stage in the Alexander Palace for the 29th edition of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) world championship in front of up to 3000 spectators. At the age of 16 years and 57 days. Only Australian Mitchell Clegg was 20 days younger when he made his World Cup debut in 2007.

Others are favorites, he knows that himself. Anyone who bets on Fabian Schmutzler's World Cup victory will get 500 euros back for one. But what does that mean? The man from Frankfurt has already made darts history and proved with his qualification a few weeks ago that little seems impossible in this sport. “Fabian goes into the tournament without pressure,” says his mother Pina Schmutzler of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “He definitely has nothing to lose. Actually at the age of 16 he has already won everything he could. We are very proud of him. "

Sometimes the family still cannot understand what is happening. It's kind of a darts fairy tale. Fabian Schmutzler only started playing in 2018, a few months later he trained for the first time in the club - and now he is right in the middle of the battle of the arrow stars. In the first round, Fabian Schmutzler meets 25-year-old Englishman Ryan Meikle, number 71 in the world rankings. “I could be the youngest participant to win a game. That means so much. But I see it more as motivation than pressure, ”says Fabian Schmutzler. On Friday he would probably meet former world champion Peter Wright in the second round. The return flights are booked for Saturday.

So that Fabian Schmutzler can still concentrate on his sport and school, his mother has built something like a protective wall around him. For weeks she has been coordinating inquiries to her son, issuing information and navigating the family through all the excitement that the success has caused. Pina Schmutzler speaks enthusiastically about what the family is currently experiencing, and yet here and there there is also skepticism. "If everything goes well ...", she then says. Because a World Cup in London also means a risk these weeks. The number of infections has been high there for months, the measures low - and now the Omikron variant is also spreading.

The 3-G rule applies at the Alexander Palace during the World Cup, and the organizers also ask fans to wear masks - unless they are eating or drinking.

And that's exactly the problem, because the fans are actually always eating or drinking.

And they sing.

Really loud.

Without break.

To get an impression of what this volume does to you, Fabian Schmutzler turned up the music and played darts in his children's room at home.

“He is better off than we are,” says his mother.

“He's a lot less nervous than we are.

I can barely wait for it."