Sports
- Joy Foster represented Jamaica at table tennis at the Caribbean championships in Trinidad in 1958, aged only 8 years old. In the same year she won the Jamaican championship titles in Women's Singles (beating defending champion 20 year old Madge Bond in the final), Women's Doubles (paired with Madge Bond), and Mixed Doubles (paired with Fuarnado Roberts). Prior to this she had already won many local trophies. She went on to win the Caribbean women's singles title twice, and competed in the United States open championships on several occasions, winning various youth-level titles. In 1961 she was named the first Jamaican sportswoman of the year.
- Ariel Hsing, a ping pong prodigy
- Fu Mingxia (伏明霞) is a diver became the youngest world champion ever in any sport at age 12, and was an Olympic gold medalist at 13 years old.
- Jet Li (Chinese name: Li Lianjie (李连杰)) is a Chinese martial artist, who has won several gold medals in wushu at the All China Games at the age of 12.
- Sachin Tendulkar - Batsman (cricket). Made debut at the age of 16. In his early matches he hit Abdul Qadir, a prominent leg spinner of the time for 4 sixes in an over, hit a century at Perth, world's fastest pitch. Representing India for 21st year in International cricket. Has scored 100 international centuries, the first batsman to get 200* in ODI.
- Michelle Wie qualified for the USGA Women's Amateur Public Links at 10 years old and won the same event at 13 years old, making her the youngest person both to qualify for and win a USGA adult national championship.
- Wayne Gretzky was skating with 10-year-olds at six years old. By 10 years old, he scored 378 goals and 139 assists, in just 85 games, with the Nadrofsky Steelers.
- Tiger Woods was a child prodigy, introduced to golf before the age of two, by his athletic father Earl. In 1984 at the age of eight, he won the 9–10 boys' event, the youngest age group available, at the Junior World Golf Championships. He first broke 80 at age eight. He went on to win the Junior World Championships six times, including four consecutive wins from 1988 to 1991.
- Nadia Comăneci - won 3 gold medals at 1976 Olympics and was the first female to achieve a perfect score of 10 in gymnastics at the age of 15.
Read more about this topic: List Of Child Prodigies
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belong to his Neighbour.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one’s behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)