Martin Schindler in darts: First written off, suddenly in the European Championship final – Sport

This time, Schindler, 30, stormed through the tournament, all the way to the final, where he was met late on Sunday evening by an experienced finalist who turned out to be too experienced. The Englishman Ross Smith, European darts champion of 2022, defeated Schindler 11:8 and thus prevented the first triumph of a German professional at one of the so-called major tournaments in darts, roughly comparable to a Grand Slam in tennis. Schindler’s entry into the final will still be noted as historic; No German had ever managed this with a major.

Schindler was more relieved than grieved on TV, now that he turned to the audience in the Westfalenhalle in a sobbing voice and thanked them. “When I started playing professional darts ten years ago, I didn’t expect anything,” said Schindler. The Strausberger wiped tears from his eyes several times on stage: “Now I was in a final at a major tournament. I did everything to win it. But I’m just happy.”

Darts is a wild affair, the stands in front of the stage are similar to those in the Oktoberfest tent. There are no limits to the disguises and blood alcohol levels – and the precision artists on stage have to master the art of concentration like in hardly any other discipline. For all the frivolity that the burly men who throw at targets exude, it is also about fragile sports careers. Not in the classic sense of physical training, but in this very own and increasingly popular art form.

And Schindler’s career had recently started to falter; “The Wall” was crumbling, so to speak. The 2026 season was marked by failures; within a year he had slipped ten places from 13th in the world rankings. And he would have fallen out of the European Championship field for the first time in six years if he hadn’t defeated the Czech Karel Sedlacek in Maastricht a week earlier. As number 31 on the 32-seeded list, Schindler was allowed to compete in Dortmund – and defeated class players one after the other: first the two Dutchmen Wessel Nijman (6:5) and Jermaine Wattimena (10:4), before he made the Welshman Johnny Clayton (10:1) and Krzysztof Ratajski from Poland (11:6) look old.

“We are vulnerable, things can go bad for us,” Schindler said during the tournament. Final opponent Smith, who almost lost his 8-2 lead against Schindler, finally said: “He’s a really nice guy, but it’s extremely difficult to play against him. He’s a fighter.”