The mantle of a sporting prodigy is hard-earned – but there is a danger. Down the years it is a story of many anointed, and few are the real deal.
Often a burden as much as a recognition of extreme, nascent talent, but it remains the title every young boy or girl aims to have bestowed upon them. The jewel in the crown, the future star, the one to pin your club, country or personal hopes and dreams on for the next decade or more.
So who are the next generation that will shake off the pressure, clear every hurdle and fulfil their status as the next big thing?
We’ve seen a raft of young superstars come through in recent years, including the likes of Luke Littler, a darts world champion at 18, Max Dowman, pushing to be on Arsenal’s bench at just 15, skateboarder Sky Brown, the youngest British Olympics medallist ever at 13 in 2021, tennis’ 17-year-old star Mirra Andreeva and of course Lamine Yamal, the Ballon d’Or contender who is only a month into being 18.
But you already know about them. They’re old (ahem) news by now and have made their respective breakthroughs in their fields.
Here, we list the next 10 great talents, across the globe and across sports – it’s time to get to know them now, because they’ll be household names before you know it.
Luke Littler became darts’ youngest ever world champion at just 17 at the start of this year
Lamine Yamal was just a day past his 17th birthday when he led Spain to Euro 2024 glory
MEN’S FOOTBALL: Ayyoub Bouaddi
Age: 17 Country: France Club side: Lille Position: Midfielder
The problem for top teenage talents today is that all are inevitably measured against Lamine Yamal. No matter how good they are, they will struggle to match the achievements of the Barcelona and Spain superstar, who is arguably the best player in the world at just 18.
In another era, there would be far more attention on players like Bouaddi, the elegant midfielder who ran the show against Real Madrid in the Champions League last October. Very few footballers manage that in an entire career, let alone on their 17th birthday.
He was already the youngest player to ever play a UEFA competition match, having made his Lille debut in the Conference League two years ago three days after turning 16.
Few people can dominate a game against Real Madrid, never mind on their 17th birthday
Bouaddi is just as impressive off the pitch as on it, excelling at school and maths in particular
Like many young French players, Bouaddi appears as mature off the pitch as he is on it. With Brigitte Macron, the wife of French president Emmanuel Macron, among the audience, the 15-year-old Bouaddi took part in a public speaking contest, offered to players enrolled in French academies. He has excelled at school, particularly in maths.
‘I wanted to carry on my studies because it allows me to make the most of my free time, and learn,’ Bouaddi has said. ‘It enables me to keep my mind alert.’
This is a big season for Bouaddi. Although the French senior squad is stacked with talent, he is good enough to break into it, having already represented his country four times at Under 21s level. And what better stage could there be to demonstrate his talent to the globe than next summer’s World Cup?
TOM COLLOMOSSE
CRICKET: Vaibhav Suryavanshi
Age: 14 Country: India Club side: Rajasthan Royals Position: Opening batsman
Debate has raged as to whether the aggressive left-hander really is 14, with some reports suggesting he is actually two years older. But, frankly, when you’re young and this talented, who is quibbling?
Let’s stick with the number that is used in official records then, and consider that he was only 13 when Rajasthan spent more than £100,000 on his signature last year. Some fee for an adolescent, and put into further context by full India internationals like Prithvi Shaw and Shardul Thakur going unsold at the auction in Jeddah.
Still an unknown to mainstream English fans, as his main body of work has been formed at the Indian Premier League, he did create headlines by hitting his first ball in men’s professional cricket for six and then slammed Gujarat Titans for a 35-ball hundred – the second fastest in the competition’s history.
Vaibhav Suryavanshi struck a 35-ball hundred aged just 14 in the Indian Premier League this year, rocketing into the public consciousness
He has already taken down England’s Under 19s this summer and it will not be long before he’s doing the same to the senior team
Pitching him against his peers feels unfair. Earlier this summer, his strike rate versus England Under 19s was an astonishing 174. One one game, he took them for 86 runs off 31 balls.
With such an array of clean hitting statistics, a full India debut is shaping on the horizon, perhaps alongside his Royals team-mate Yashasvi Jaiswal at the top of the order.
RICHARD GIBSON
RUGBY UNION: JC Mars
Age: 20 Country: South Africa Club side: DHL Stormers Position: Full-back
South Africa have won the last two men’s World Cups and the bad news for their rugby rivals is the Springbok production line of talent isn’t slowing down.
The next generation is immensely talented and headed up by the wonderfully named JC Mars. Full name Jean Claude Mars, his performances at schoolboy and age grade level have made him a viral sensation on social media.
Put his name into YouTube, Instagram or TikTok and outrageous highlights reels will immediately appear.
Mars is now 20. He is an electric, hot-stepping back with a style of running very similar to that of Cheslin Kolbe. He wears a scrum cap too. Mars prefers to play full-back rather than wing, however.
JC Mars has electric pace and his style (and scrum cap) are reminiscent of Springbok great Cheslin Kolbe
His talent, highlighted by electric pace and a trademark goose step, means he has already signed a sponsorship deal with adidas.
The best young schoolboy players in South Africa attend Craven Week and in 2023, Mars lit up that competition with Paarl Boys High.
Now, he is beginning to make his first steps in senior rugby and although not a household name yet, all signs point to him being one in the years to come.
Last season, he made his debut for boyhood side DHL Stormers against Harlequins in the Champions Cup, and scored a try in a heavy defeat.
Expect him to continue his development and push through into Rassie Erasmus’ senior South Africa side in the next two years – just in time for the 2027 World Cup in Australia.
ALEX BYWATER
TENNIS: Victoria Mboko
Age: 18 Country: Canada World ranking: 85
Cyprien and Godee Mboko fled the turbulent Democratic Republic of Congo and settled in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Victoria was born.
Then came a move to Toronto where all four children threw themselves into tennis. As is often the case: the youngest was the best.
Victoria Mboko has always been a prodigy – she played her first senior tournament aged 14 – but teenage injuries meant whispers of her talent did not filter outside Canada.
This year that changed: Mboko began 2025 in extraordinary fashion by winning her first 40 sets in a row – 20 matches and four titles.
From there she has smoothly and fearlessly adapted to the WTA tour, beating six top-50 players. Mboko has an excellent serve and natural power off the ground – the backhand looks a particularly lethal weapon – but her most impressive quality is a quiet but unshakeable confidence.
Canadian rising star Victoria Mboko played her first senior tournament at the age of just 14
The biggest win of her career came when she swept aside world No 2 Coco Gauff last week on home soil in Montreal
A nice anecdote to illustrate this came from her sister Gracia. At the age of nine, Victoria was given the chance to play an Under 18s event because of a late withdrawal and faced her sister, then 17. Gracia won 6-0, 6-0 leaving Vitoria in disbelief – the nine-year-old had fully expected to win.
She clearly brought that same self-belief into her last 16 clash with world No2 Coco Gauff in Montreal on August 2, coming away with a resounding 6-1, 6-4 victory. On Wednesday night she took down 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina in the semi-final to set up a clash with Naomi Osaka.
Mboko has been taken under the wing of Bianca Andreescu, and looks a decent bet to follow her fellow Canuck into the Grand Slam winner’s circle. When that breakthrough will come, who knows – but this is a young woman in a hurry.
MATTHEW LAMBWELL
FORMULA ONE: Kenzo Craigie
Age: 14 Country: England Team: Mercedes-AMG
Motor racing is littered with parents who spent more than they could afford on children they thought could make it but couldn’t quite. Several get near to the holy grail of Formula One, but not through the gates.
It’s an expensive business, worth perhaps £2million, with sponsors usually needed on the way up.
The backing of a big team is a near-necessary ingredient, and Kenzo has that in the shape of Mercedes, as Lewis Hamilton did with McLaren’s Ron Dennis.
Kenzo Craigie (left, pictured with Lando Norris and receiving his FIA Action of the Year award last year for a last-lap overtake) is already a rising star in Formula One at the age of just 14
The Epsom-born driver (second right) tore up the karting scene and is in a programme at Mercedes that has proven successful for the likes of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli
Kenzo, born in 2010 in Epsom, Surrey, is not from a motor-racing family, but joined Mercedes’ Junior Programme in 2023 and is a star of the karting scene.
He made the podium at his first Bambino race aged six. Wins and podiums continued in Cadet karting before Mercedes picked him up in 2023, just as they backed their current F1 drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli through their teenage development.
After success lower down the ladder, Craigie is taking part this year in the OK Senior series, the latest rung up. Big things are expected of him.
JONATHAN McEVOY
BOXING: Salim Ellis-Bey
Age: 17 Country: USA Weight class: 60kg
Ellis-Bey has already become one of the most promising amateur boxers. The North Philadelphia native claimed the 2024 USA Boxing National Championship in December and was named Youth Male Outstanding Boxer, adding to an already impressive amateur record that reads 123 wins, 20 losses.
Ellis-Bey trains at Front Street Gym, a local boxing landmark featured in the Creed films. His coach is his father, Dawud Bey AL-Rasul, who introduced him to the sport after a moment that changed everything.
Salim Ellis-Bey (blue) claims victory in the semi-final of last year’s USA Boxing National Championship, before going on to win gold
At age eight, Ellis-Bey had his new Mongoose bike stolen outside a store. He chased the thief but couldn’t catch him. Furious, he returned home. His father told him to hit the heavy bag instead of the furniture. The next day, he took him to a boxing gym. And Ellis-Bey never left.
Now captain of USA Boxing’s Youth High-Performance Team, he made his international debut at the 2025 Brandenburg Cup in Germany, winning the 60 kilo final against Azerbaijan’s Subhan Babayev. Like Muhammad Ali – whose own boxing career began after his bicycle was stolen – Ellis-Bey’s path to the ring started with loss, followed by discipline.
With national acclaim and Olympic potential, he’s becoming one of Philadelphia’s next great boxing exports and could follow in the footsteps of world champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis.
CHARLOTTE DALY
GOLF: Miles Russell
Age: 16 Country: USA World ranking: 2,465
For those of us who grew up watching Phil Mickelson’s mastery around the greens, the promise of another elegant left hander with a silky short game is enough to get the juices of anticipation flowing.
Russell has everything to become the next big lefty. He made his PGA Tour debut at just 15 years old, having previously become the youngest player to make a cut on the Korn Ferry Tour when he finished tied for 20th at last year’s LECOM Suncoast Classic in his first senior outing.
The youngster from Jacksonville Beach, Florida was named the AJGA Boys Player of the Year a day after his 15th birthday, breaking the previous record for the youngest winner held by one Tiger Woods.
Miles Russell could well be the next big ‘lefty’, following in the footsteps of major winners Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson
He made the cut on the Korn Ferry Tour as a 15-year-old, setting a new record
Russell has won two major junior titles this year at the Junior Invitational and the Boys’ Championship, having already bagged the Junior PGA Championship, the Junior Players and the AJGA Tournament of Champions. He played on the US team at the last Junior Ryder Cup in 2023 and will do so again this year at Nassau Country Club in New York.
He first hit a golf ball aged two, taken to the course by his father and grandfather. ‘I went through a bucket of balls in three minutes,’ he said. He broke par aged six, bagged his first hole in one aged nine and finished second in the Augusta Drive, Pitch and Putt in the same year.
Not the biggest or tallest, it’s Russell’s ball-striking and short game that sets him apart. It took the sound of just one crisp chip aged six to convince his coach Ramon Bescansa he had something. ‘I can work with this,’ Bescansa recalled.
‘It’s going to be fun watching this young lefty,’ declared Mickelson last year. You can say that again.
JAMES SHARPE
ATHLETICS: Gout Gout
Age: 17 Country: Australia Events: 100m, 200m
So good they named him twice. Sprint sensation Gout may share his name with a type of arthritis, but only because of an administration error.
His dad revealed last year that the family surname is actually Guout, pronounced ‘Gwot’. Yet it was misspelt on their papers when they moved from South Sudan to Egypt, after being translated into Arabic.
Gout’s first love was football, idolising Cristiano Ronaldo, but he was encouraged to take up athletics after he was spotted racing in sand shoes at a school athletics carnival at the age of 13.
He went viral last year when he broke Peter Norman’s 56-year-old Australian senior 200metres record with a run of 20.04sec, making him the fastest 16-year-old in history – surpassing even Usain Bolt.
Gout Gout is the fastest young sprinter of all time – beating even Usain Bolt’s times as a 16-year-old
Gout’s personal best of 20.02 would have won him fifth place at last year’s Paris Olympics
Gout has since lowered his personal best to 20.02sec and has already been selected for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September, which will be his first major senior event.
He signed a seven-figure deal with adidas last year and went to Florida to train with Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles, who he could challenge for medals next month.
Away from the track, he is currently preparing for his Year 12 exams in accounting, biology, English, maths and psychology, the latter of which he plans to study at university.
It is in track and field, though, that he is a real A-star student.
DAVID COVERDALE
SWIMMING: Yu Zidi
Age: 12 Country: China
At just 12 years old, Yu announced her arrival on the international stage last month when she became the youngest swimmer to ever win a medal at the World Aquatics Championships – winning bronze in the 4x200m freestyle relay.
The Chinese schoolgirl also narrowly missed out on an individual medal when she finished fourth in both the 200m butterfly final and 200m medley final. Yu’s performances proved she will be a serious contender for gold at the next Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028, when she will still be only 15.
Yu Zidi was just 12 years old when she won bronze in the 4x200m freestyle relay at last year’s World Aquatics Championships
Yu was born two months after London 2012 and could win her first Olympics medal at the age of just 15 in LA in 2028
The prodigy, who was born two months after London 2012, took up swimming at the age of six after meeting a coach during a family trip to a water park. She has since trained at the Hebei Taihua Jinye Swimming Club, south of Beijing, alongside her hero Li Bingjie, who won three Olympic medals last summer.
At her national championships in May, Yu wore her lucky swimming cap, which contains a picture of a cartoon dog.
‘When I feel tired during training, I encourage myself by imagining how cool it would be to compete internationally in a swimsuit adorned with the national flag and my doggy cap,’ she said.
DAVID COVERDALE
WOMEN’S FOOTBALL: Lola Brown
Age: 17 Country: England Club side: Crystal Palace (on loan from Chelsea) Position: Midfielder
Ready and waiting to take up the mantle of the next Lioness superstar is 17-year-old Brown.
Brown is hard to miss on the pitch – not just for her bleached-blonde pixie cut. The England Under 19s international is a versatile midfielder, equally at home in central midfield or out wide, with a knack of wriggling out of tight spaces with similar effortless flair as fellow Chelsea No 10, Lauren James.
A team-mate of Euros hero Michelle Agyemang in the England academy setup, Brown is a lifelong Chelsea fan and Cobham graduate – signing her first professional contract in November last year.
Brown’s distinctive blonde pixie cut stands out on the pitch – but her talent is what’s really shining through
Brown has already represented England’s Under 19s and is ready to break through this season
After catching the eye of Sonia Bompastor in the French coach’s first season in charge, Brown was rewarded with three senior appearances last season – twice in the Champions League group stage and once in the league against Tottenham in May, all from the bench.
Though she favours her left foot, Brown is confident with both, and there’s something distinctly Vivianne Miedema-esque in her directness, hold-up play, and signature chop-and-shoot from distance.
Those who work closely with Brown describe her as hardworking and mature beyond her years, and she’s already seeking guidance from senior figures like Aggie Beever-Jones and Lucy Bronze as Chelsea’s Academy Graduate of the Season prepares for the next big step in her career on loan at Crystal Palace for the 2025-26 campaign.
TARA ANSON-WALSH
THE USA: Cavan Sullivan
Age: 15 Country: USA Club side: Philadelphia Union (joining Manchester City in 2028) Position: Midfielder
The US has always been too quick to bequeath the title of the ‘Next Great Hope’ upon its players. Sometimes, in the case of Christian Pulisic, it works out. For others, like Freddy Adu, it becomes a burden.
The most recent to be bestowed this title is Sullivan, the Philadelphia native playing for his hometown club. So sudden was his rise that Manchester City signed him to a contract at 14 years old that includes a clause moving him to the Etihad when he turns 18.
Cavan Sullivan is the best young talent to come out of America in decades, and has already been snapped up by Manchester City
The 15-year-old has already played for City’s Under 21s and scored for them in a friendly against National League North side Buxton
In the meantime, he has been splitting time between the Philadelphia Union first team and reserve side and has performed admirably on both fronts.
Being raised in a household teeming with football must have helped: his father played professionally in the American second division, his mother played collegiately, and his oldest brother Quinn is a consistent Union starter.
But Cavan has the most potential of them all, possessing elite vision and a hunger for goals. He already showed that in England, scoring in a match for City’s Under 21s against National League North side Buxton.
Sullivan, who is eligible to represent Germany and Bangladesh as well as the US due to his mother’s heritage, is viewed by City as a key piece of their future.
JAKE FENNER