The China Mail - Four sporting prodigies who scaled the heights

The Italian tyro joins an illustrious band of sporting talents who dominated their sport at the same age.

AFP Sport picks out four examples of precocious youthful talent:

Pele -- Football

Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pele, was just 17 when dubbed 'King' after sparkling performances in Brazil's 1958 World Cup-winning campaign.

He scored six goals in four matches -- including a hat-trick in the semi-final against France and two against the Swedes in the final -- all the more remarkable as he arrived in Sweden with a knee injury.

"When Pele scored the fifth goal in that final, I have to be honest and say I felt like applauding," said Swedish opponent 'Sigge' Parling, praise indeed from a tough as teak player whose nickname was 'The Iron Stove'.

Pele was to kick on and win the World Cup a further two times, in 1962, when he was still only 21, and 1970 in a team which was arguably the greatest ever to lift the trophy.

Steffi Graf -- Tennis

Only five players in the history of tennis have won the Grand Slam of all four majors in one calendar year: the last of those was a 19-year-old West German called Steffi Graf in 1988.

She had announced her arrival on the big stage a year earlier, just before her 18th birthday, when she defeated defending champion Martina Navratilova in a thrilling French Open final.

Then came her annus mirabilis. She started the year by seesing off Chris Evert at the Australian Open.

In Paris the double-bagel of Natasha Zvereva in the French Open final was jaw-dropping in its ruthlessness although even that was overshadowed by her victory at Wimbledon when she came back from a set and 0-2 down to end Navratilova's run of six successive titles.

She completed the Slam with a three-set win over Gabriela Sabatini at the US Open to join Don Budge, Maureen Connolly, Rod Laver (who did it twice), and Margaret Court as the only players to sweep the majors in one year.

Graf went one better, adding the Olympic title in Seoul and remains ]the only player, man or woman, to achieve the 'Golden Slam' in the same year.

Graf retired in 1999 with 22 career Grand Slam singles titles to her name -- and for all the greatness of Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic, tennis is still awaiting a sixth player to join the pantheon.

Mikaela Shiffrin -- Alpine skiing

The most succesful woman skier of all time was still at high school when in 2011, aged 15, she first raced on the World Cup circuit, slalom and later giant slalom her preferred disciplines.

By 2013 Shiffrin was in the groove, being crowned slalom world champion and lifting the World Cup crystal globe in the discipline.

That was merely the aperitif for the following year when a month before the American's 19th birthday she became the youngest slalom Olympic champion in Sochi.

She also successfully defended her World Cup crown.

From there no mountain has proved high enough for her in terms of her achievements -- Shiffrin is a three-time Olympic gold medallist, an eight-time world champion and a six-time overall World Cup winner.

Just 31, she is still going strong, seeking to add to her record of 110 World Cup victories.

Sachin Tendulkar -- Cricket

The record-breaking Indian batter made his Test debut when he was just 15 but lit up the international scene two years later, notching the first of his 100 international centuries in the 1990 Old Trafford Test against England.

By 1993, the year he turned 20, he was climbing to the peak as he chalked up 640 runs in nine Test innings which included five fifties and two centuries.

His Test average that year was a staggering 91.42, and in November 1994 just after his 21st birthday he became the number one-ranked batter in the world for the first time.

Tendulkar retired in 2013 when he was 40 as an all-time great and the highest run-scorer in international cricket.

L.Kwan--ThChM