alt Hacker NewsIn contrast, it's rare to find any classical singers who were child prodigies. Whatever skills you may develop as a child there apparently don't transfer well into adulthood. It makes sense to me that there may be fine ear/motorics skills which are far more relevant to violinists, which do transfer.
Upthread someone made the point that adult "physique" for lack of a better word matters more for some pursuits than others. Chess prodigies don't need to grow to 6ft tall, but if a basketball prodigy doesn't get tall enough, he's never making the NBA.
I think the same concept could generalize: for pursuit X, the impact of childhood skill is inversely related to the impact of adult form.