When you think of a child prodigy, it’s likely you think of a kid who is composing symphonies at the age of three or graduating from high school when the rest of us are still eating dirt. However, one thing we don’t hear a lot about is athletic prodigies, and they do exist. Sometimes we hear about extraordinarily skilled child athletes, but not as much as we hear about the musical or academic prodigies. With that said, there’s a little girl who is getting a lot of press because she’s such an exceptional ice skater. Here’s the kicker: she’s only four years old. She’s not even old enough to go to kindergarten, yet she is gracing the ice and winning hearts around the world.
Her name is Madison Rapkine and she’s winning not just hearts, but also competitions, and her mom couldn’t be more proud of her. When Madison’s mom, Jennifer Rapkine, uploaded the video to YouTube, she captioned it saying that Madison has “so much joy when she takes the ice, it’s just totally infectious.” It’s interesting to note that Madison has the technique, skill, and grace of many older skaters who have much more experience than she has. After all, she’s only been skating for two years. As a matter of fact, in the video below, you’ll hear the announcer introduce her and say that “she’s been skating for about half her life.”
Since she was two years old, Madison has been obsessed with ice skating. In the video below, Madison is performing her Alpha Technical program, her mother says. She added that while this program doesn’t show everything Madison can do on the ice, it does an amazing job of highlighting her joy of the sport and her sweet brilliant smile. Shen she heard there were several hundred people in the audience, Madison said, “Oh, yay!”
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When “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” begins to play, Madison starts with an elegant spin that reminds us of a ballerina in a music box. But as her mom says, the best thing of all is that smile. Watch her performance below.