Depends on Ato’s interpretation of “prodigy” - if he means early developers, then he’s right. If he means giant talent for events on the T&F program, he’s probably not right. For starters, most female athletics prodigies (true prodigies) will stay in athletics because there are few alternative sports for them other than basketball, hockey or soccer which lend themselves to running. As for throwing or jumping prodigies, well, they really have even fewer sporting alternatives.
Now if he’s talking males, prodigious talent in distance running will probably stay in distance running - there are any number of African stories of kids like Haile Gebrselassie winning at youth and junior level and remaining in the sport.
And if he’s talking male sprints, well most of the true sprint prodigies like Usain Bolt stayed on the track.