Have you ever sat on a particularly long train ride somewhere? Or waited in a queue for five hours to get back through passport control at Gatwick Airport? Or perhaps you’re the sort of person who likes to talk to strangers in pubs. If any of these apply to you, then you’ll know the value of a good hypothetical.
There are the classics like, ‘if you could have a conversation with any famous dead person from history, who would it be?’ And there are the ones that go viral such as, ‘who’d win in a mass brawl between a gorilla and a hundred men?’
They’re daft, but they stimulate conversation. And most importantly, they’re a wonderful distraction from the crushing everyday concerns of money, war and health woes.
The latest hypothetical gripping the nation involves forcing two famous sportspeople to race: darts world champ Luke Littler and Olympic athlete Sir Mo Farah. Not in a straight running race, obviously. That’s not much of a chat wrangler.
No, the internet has cooked up something far more deranged to chew on.
It does involve running. It’s a half marathon. So that’s 13.1 miles – so far, so Farah, right? Sure, but here’s where Luke’s got a Littler bit of a chance…
At every mile marker, both men have to stop and complete a full 501 darts checkout* before they can carry on. So that’s over 22 kilometres run, plus 13 complete blitzings of a dartboard.
The question folk are debating online is simply ‘who wins?’
The idea picked up traction after fans started throwing it around Reddit before it recently hit the wider zeitgeist.
Boxer Dave Allen broke the rules this week, moving away from the hypothetical and doing some actual primary research. Friends with both men, he reached out to see what their thoughts were.
‘I don’t think Mo could take out 501,’ Luke the Nuke fired back. ‘TBH I’d walk it after my first 501.’
You can sort of see what Littler means. He can just get the darts done, then amble the rest. So surely he’s favourite for the thing? Unless his 43 year-old knight of the realm opponent is secretly a 180 machine, that is.
What if Littler decided to walk it as he’s suggested? Let’s say he really took it easy and each mile took half an hour. That’s six and a half hours of strolling for a man that’s not exactly known for peak physical fitness (we’re not judging, the man plays darts for a living).
Plus there’s the 13 checkouts. If he’s in a nine-darter mood, they won’t take long. Even so. By the end, the man’s going to be pretty knackered and slow.
Meanwhile, there’s one of history’s best ever long distance runners, who’s won four gold medals at two different Olympics.
Gliding through his 13 mile-long dashes. Only to have to keep stopping to try and nail a 501 without ending up locked in what all rubbish darts players know as the ‘Madhouse’ (an infuriating infinite loop of trying – and failing – to hit a double one as checkout looms).
As a TV spectacle it’d be utter chaos. Sure, it’d be fun for a bit. And then mostly just quite upsetting. Cutting between shots of Sir Mo Farah screaming at a dartboard somewhere in a nice park, tears streaming down his face as he struggles to subtract four from 367…
… and Luke Littler spewing up Lucozade Orange all down his polyester polo shirt and falling into a hedge. Still, it beats watching repeats of Flog It! on a Sunday afternoon, doesn’t it?
Like all the best hypothetical arguments, it doesn’t really need an answer. It’s about the journey, not the destination. As it would be for Littler and Farah. The journeys would be hard. And the destinations, most likely, would be heavily-staffed private medical institutions for both.
The real question, of course, is ‘how would the two get on if a gorilla was released during the race?’ Well, it’s either that or ‘what are you having for dinner later?’ And you don’t want to think about that again.
*For the uninitiated: That’s start on a score of 501, deduct your scores to get to exactly zero, landing on a double to finish.