At only age 8, Rudolph Ingram Jr. has established his footprints on the sand of life! Talk stamina, determination, enviable confidence and unbelievable six packs – proof of pure hard work, the young sprinter isn’t dubbed the next Usain Bolt for nothing.
Rudolph from Florida caught on real early on his passion, at age four, inspired by his dad Rudolph Ingram Sr. who was also into sports and played football during his younger years, Blaze had started training right from age four.
The three-time Amateur Athletic Union winner has already broken several records: in 2018, Rudolph went viral after winning the 100-meter dash and took second place in the 200-meter dash in his age group at the AAU Championships.
By 2019 he came back even stronger and more determined, he wowed the crowd during the competition by completing the 60-meter dash in 8.69 seconds, dominating in the 100-meter dash yet again, coming in at 13.48 seconds — and beating his personal best of 14.59 seconds, just 13.48 seconds behind the record for sprinters 17-18 years old.
His father who has always been hands-on in his training is one proud father.
“I have never missed a practice, never missed a game, and I do all his training sessions,” Rudolph Sr. said. “He’s a superstar to everyone else. He’s my baby. I’m the manager, videographer, trainer, Uber driver… without the tip. The tip is just seeing him happy and loving what he does.”
“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.”
“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,” Rudolph Sr. told ABC Action News.
“He watched the Usain Bolt documentary, he has seen a lot of those people’s documentaries and he realizes that they were doing the same thing that [he] was doing at that age. So [he] could see where this would lead to,” he said.
For the young champ, he knows reality; success doesn’t come easy
“It feel great, anyways I trained for it,” said Blaze, who dreams “to get into the NFL” someday.
Blaze @blaze_813 has deservedly caught the attention of many people, including football players O.J. Howard and Mike Evans from Tampa Bay Bucs and basketball star LeBron James.
