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Ansu Fati, Coco Gauff, Sky Brown & Oleksii Sereda: Amazing sporting youngsters

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Published in Tennis
Tuesday, 17 September 2019 09:02

At 16, life revolves around revision for exams, having a kickaround with mates, getting an invite to the next house party and working out the best Instagram filters.

But, what if you have to deal with the pressure of being a professional athlete too?

Adolescence can bring some of the best times of your life - and these sporting youngsters have taken those teenage dreams on a whole other level.

Ansu Fati - football

For most 16-year-olds, football is mostly about playing headers and volleys.

Ansu Fati, however, has to think about whether to sit next to Lionel Messi or Luis Suarez for lunch.

The Barcelona winger has been lighting up La Liga in the absence of Messi - not only did he start the 5-2 victory over Valencia on Saturday, he scored within the opening 110 seconds.

Five minutes later, he danced his way into the box to pick out Frenkie de Jong, who scored the Catalans' second goal.

His opening two appearances have yielded two goals and one assist, causing the Spanish Football Federation to act fast in order to get the Guinea-Bissau-born winger cleared to play for Spain.

If he strikes against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League on Tuesday, he will become the youngest goalscorer in the competition's history.

Coco Gauff - tennis

Beating Venus Williams at Wimbledon, starring on the cover of Teen Vogue and being fan-girled by Serena Williams... Coco Gauff isn't your typical 15-year-old.

Coco burst on to the tennis scene by reaching the last 16 at Wimbledon, losing to eventual champion Simona Halep.

Her rise to fame caught Serena's attention, and she was a keen spectator when Coco faced Naomi Osaka at the US Open.

And that match - which Osaka won in straight sets - turned out to be an emotional one.

"She was crying, she won. I was crying. Everybody was crying!" Coco said after the match. "I didn't know why she was crying. I was like: 'You won the match!'"

With 604,000 Instagram followers and Serena in your corner, you definitely won't be short of people to sit with at lunch.

Sky Brown - skateboarding

At the age of 11, Sky Brown can already start thinking about competing at the Olympics next year.

Sky won bronze at the Park World Skateboarding Championships in Sao Paulo last weekend, which means she will be seeded for next season's Olympic qualifying events.

If she does qualify for Tokyo, she will be aged just 12 years and 15 days when the skateboarding event gets under way.

That would mean she becomes the youngest Briton to appear at a Summer Olympics - beating the record of Margery Hinton, who was 13 years and 43 days when she competed in the 200m breaststroke in 1928.

Most 11-year-olds are donning a brand new school uniform and looking forward to making a bunch of new mates.

Sky's got her own new experience to look forward to. The destination? Tokyo. The uniform? A Team GB tracksuit and skateboard to match.

Oleksii Sereda - diving

Imagine walking into the canteen as the youngest European champion in your sport's history. That's some serious street cred right there.

Step forward diver Oleksii Sereda, who broke a record held by Briton's Tom Daley.

The 13-year-old won 10m platform gold in his hometown of Kiev in August - beating Daley's mark by three months.

Who needs a 25m badge stitched on to their trunks when they can walk into the changing room with a European gold medal?

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