Rudolph “Blaze” Ingram has taken the internet by storm with his amazing skills on the running track, and people are now comparing him to the fastest man on earth, Usain Bolt.
The little boy has become the fastest 7-year-old in the world after breaking his record and completing a 100-meter race in 13.48 seconds, surpassing his time from August, when he finished the same distance in 14.59 seconds. The boy also impressed by running 60 meters in only 8.69 seconds.
Ingram, from Tampa, has earned the title of “Blaze the Great” on Instagram, where he already has a rising follower count with 453k at the moment.
According to what his father, Rudolph Ingram Sr., told ABC Action News, Blaze started to train at 4, and his athleticism began after watching the Olympic games. "I can give him all the tools to be great, but his drive and work ethic and competitive mentality, it sets the bar so much higher,” he said.
Blaze’s efforts drove him to position himself at the top of the USA Track and field records for his age group with his 13.48 seconds, which are only 3.39 seconds behind the record for sprinters in the 17-18 years old category.
"It feels great; anyways I trained for it,” the boy said.
Blaze is also a menace playing football. A video with highlights on his gameplay earned him reactions from Lebron James and Tampa Bay Buccaneers players Mike Evans and O.J. Howard.
For Ingram, both sports serve a purpose in his life. “Track increases my speed, body control, and running form and the training prepares me for football,” he told Youth1.
“Football keeps me active for track and being able to show off my track speed.”
Ingram, who at his age already has ripped abs, is also a leader on his team, always pushing the other players to give their best and strive for success. He said:
“I work hard at practice to set the bar high for my teammates. I want to show them we need to give it all we've got. If they don't know how to do something, I show them how to do it. I always tell them 'You practice how you play.'”
Blaze’s dream is to enter the NFL. For his father, a football coach, the plan is to let Blaze be a kid while setting the stage for his future.
The boy is also an excellent student, scoring A’s and B’s on his classes and proving that he works hard on and off the field.
“This is my baby; I’m overly proud of him. He makes me so proud,” said Rudolph Sr. "I don’t like saying it, but I feel like he’s a one in a million child. I don’t like saying it because he’s my child, but I definitely feel like he does great things."
Rudolph is the latest in a string of child sports prodigies that have made headlines in the last months.
Essaullah Khan, a 7-year-old from Balochistan, has also impressed the world with his soccer skills, mostly because despite not having the same privileges that kids like Imgram possess, Khan keeps working hard to improve and one day achieve his dream: to be like Christiano Ronaldo.
Videos of the boy shooting a ball towards a tire hanging on a wall of his home, and another where he juggles the ball for more than two minutes, went viral on social media.
Essa’s uncle, Nasrullah Khushal told GeoTV that the boy developed his passion for the sports after watching him play. “I play football for a local club, we don’t have any basic facilities here, even the ground is not proper here,” Nasr said and added:
“Essa used to travel with me for my matches, he kept watching me and trained with me when I used to practice and now he practices it whenever he gets time."
Impressed with Essa's skills, many Pakistani football stars have come forward to demand the government to provide a training facility to the natural talented kid.
“With the skill that he has at the age of 7, if given the right training and opportunity could be one of the best footballers Pakistan has ever produced,” Hajra Khan, the captain of Pakistan’s women football team, told GeoTV.
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