At age 12, he's world's youngest toreador

At the tender age of 12, Michel Lagravere is a sensation in bullfighting circles, the youngest toreador in the world. He displays little fear before snorting, charging bulls, some of which weigh around 900 pounds. By his own reckoning, he has already slain hundreds of them. This year, he has pulled his sword and waved his cape in nearly 50 bullrings around Mexico, among them the famed Plaza Mexico in the capital. He has challenged bulls in Colombia, Peru and France and has his hopes set on Spain. Known simply as "Michelito," the seventh-grader is the latest of a breed of ever-younger extreme athletes. This year, records have been broken for the youngest person to scale Mount Everest -- 13-year-old Jordan Romero, an American -- and the youngest person to sail around the world unassisted and alone, 16-year-old Jessica Watson, an Australian. As adolescents gain global attention for athletic achievements at younger ages, the focus now falls on a precocious bullfighter who stands all of 4 feet 10. "Since he was little, instead of playing with toy cars, he would pretend the dog was a bull and wave a cape in front of it," said Michelito's mother, Diana Peniche. "Instead of watching cartoons, he'd watch videos of bullfights. He wanted to know the names of all the famous bullfighters."...more