French darts star, Thibault Tricolore is preparing to compete in his second world championships on December 15 in London, where he could cross paths with the world number one in the second round.
Long a curiosity in the professional world of darts, Thibault Tricole, the only French professional player, has made his mark and will compete in his second world championships, in London, from December 15. The first Frenchman to participate in the World Championships of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), the elite of the discipline, last year, he fell in the second round against the Englishman Rob Cross, 8th in the world.
If he still hopes to do better this year, the draw has put another Englishman in his path, the reigning world champion and world number one, Luke Humphreys, in the second round “I will focus on the first (round ), already”, against an Australian well within his reach, “but I have to win to have this chance”, he confides to AFP.
Because facing Humphreys is the assurance of playing in front of 3,500 excited spectators present every evening at Alexandra Palace, while 3.7 million British television viewers followed last year's final. “At each tournament, we feel enormous fervor, but at the world championships, as it is during the (end of year) holiday season, I have the impression that each spectator experiences the event at 200%” , describes Thibault Tricole.
“Two, three years of struggle”
“All passionate and somewhat competitive players dream of participating in this ultimate event,” also admits the Frenchman, who nevertheless took time to imagine a professional career. The 35-year-old native of Auray (Morbihan) discovered the discipline at the age of 12 when his father bought a target and joined the local club. “Of course you don't hear a child say 'I'm going to play darts'”, admits the man who has practiced judo for a long time and played a little football.
Junior French champion at 17, he reached a milestone when his studies as a landscape architect sent him for three years to Belgium, another major darts country, for “a sort of unofficial sport-study”, confides- he. “Faced with much stronger players than what I could find in France”, he progressed enormously but found himself torn between his professional activity which he carried out independently and his passion, upon his return.
It will ultimately be his partner Marie, met in 2016 – obviously during a darts match -, and owner of the café-concert in Malguénac (Morbihan) where he trains, who “pushes him to at least try to (be) confront the best,” he says. “I had two, three years of real struggle,” he admits, faced with the lack of recognition for a discipline which “did not reach any media and very few potential sponsors”. With approximately 2,000 licensees currently, the French darts federation, created in 1976, remains relatively confidential.
The mentality of a high-level athlete
“For 15 years, people told me, 'Oh yeah, you play in bars, you drink beers' (… However), when I talk to top athletes, we have the same language. Even if I don't don't make the same efforts in training as them, on a mental level, it's clear that we are on the same wavelength”, assures Tricole. Semi-pro world vice-champion in 2022, he was occasionally invited to PDC tournaments, until obtaining the “Tour Card” which guaranteed him two seasons on the pro circuit, by winning a tournament in Germany with a hundred participants, in November 2023.
Financially, he enters a whole new world. A third round in a PDC tournament brings in as much as a final victory in semi-pro, around 2,000 euros. At the Worlds, if he loses in the first round, he will pocket 9,000 euros, double if he loses in the second, while 600,000 euros await the winner. Since January, his earnings on the pro circuit have exceeded 50,000 euros, with some prestigious victories, such as recently against Gerwyn Price, world No.10 and world champion in 2021, which silenced the taunts.
“Respect, in any case, is only earned if you start to beat them. Especially the English,” notes “The French Touch”, his nickname on the circuit he chose himself. “If I had let the English choose, they would have called me ‘Frog’s Legs’ or something like that,” he says with a smile.
