It is 4 p.m. and like every day, Mickaël enters the bar of the town hall in Fraize in the Vosges, a small village an hour from Épinal.
Like every day, he heads to the back room of the bar, where the dartboard is located.
“Will you turn on the light for me,” Mickaël asks Yvan, bar owner.
“Well Mickaël, turn on the light.
What use will it serve you?
» Because Mickaël Lacner has been blind since childhood.
“I had retinoblastoma when I was 1.5 years old.
In short, it's cancer, he quickly says.
To save my life, they had to remove my optic nerve and put in prosthetics.”
At 45 years old, “Mika” as his friends call him has almost always been plunged into total darkness.
“One day he was alone at the bar, I saw him while I was playing darts,” remembers the man who became his friend and who has the same name as him, Mickaël.
So for a laugh I asked him to come play a game with us.
I thought he was going to laugh in my face.
But not at all, he played with us.
So at first, he aimed at the speakers, the tapestry.”
But since then Mickaël has come to play every day.
“From 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a little break in the afternoon from time to time,” assures Yvan behind his bar.
So to get his bearings, his friends made him a stool which they place at the level of the throwing line.
“The stool is the width of the target, so if I am above it and I shoot straight, I know that the arrow will go into the target,” explains Mickaël.
But now I can play just as well without it.”
His friend Michou also made him a wooden target, with the numbers written in Braille.
“It allowed me to learn the target by heart, and now I know exactly where each number is.
If I have to make a 13, I know what zone I have to aim for.”
French Championship objective
Since November, Mickaël has joined a darts team: “The Blind Team”.
“We found the name in honor of Mika,” explains Alex, the team captain.
The objective is to qualify for the French Championships which will take place in Vannes this summer.
And why not get on the podium with Mika.”
So every week, the “Blind Team” meets to play the qualifying matches.
This Friday evening, they had a meeting in Épinal.
The victory was clear for the “Blind Team”, which won 16 rounds to 1, thanks in particular to Mickaël in great form, with an average of more than 50 points scored per throw.
“Each round we win brings us a little closer to qualifying, so we’re not giving up,” explains Alex.
“It started as a joke.
And today I am proud of him, to see how far he has gone,” said his friend Mickaël, moved.
“Yes, but it was a good joke,” Mika cuts in.
Also read: Thibault Tricole, first Frenchman at the World Darts: “We need pioneers to open the way”
“There are around ten blind people playing darts in France,” assures Mickaël.
But I am the only one to be registered in the championship.
What I would like is to attract others.
And why not create a championship for the blind, in parallel with the French Championship.
But some improvements are needed.
For example, the target would need to be able to speak, to tell us the score.
This would allow us to play in total autonomy.”
Watch our video report at the top of the article.