Athletics boss explains why Gout Gout continues to garnerglobal interest despite only shooting to prominence in December 2024.
Australian teen sensation Gout Gout has garnered a lot of interest since he shot to prominence at the Australian All Schools Athletics Championships in 2024.
The 17-year-old, whose first step towards a professional career was training with Olympic champion Noah Lyles in January, has been likened to Usain Bolt and tipped for greatness.
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Gout Gout‘s meteoric rise has captured the public imagination and its profound effect has led to Australian athletes being given the spotlight. Simon Hollingsworth, the Australian Federation athletics boss, said Gout Gout has generated a lot of interest because he runs in 100-meter and 200-meter events, races that the world identifies with athletics.
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“He has supercharged interest in the sport. It is undeniable. It is the double effect of the fact he is involved in the 100 and 200 metre sprints which have a special place in people’s hearts so for an Australian to show all the signs of being a major contender with the world’s best captures people’s imagination,” Hollingsworth told the Sunday Morning Herald.
He further highlighted that perhaps Gout Gout’s background has played a key role too as well as how he not only runs but also how he cruises to victory.
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“And then there is his unique story being a teenager of African-born parents who claimed a long-standing really significant sprint record. And it’s not just that he is winning, it is the way he is winning and racing, his age.”
The Gout Gout effect is tipped to make this weekend’s Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne. The schoolboy star Gout, who has broken the national men’s 200m record, will run at Lakeside Stadium on Saturday night in his biggest race since last year’s breakthrough performance at the world junior championships, where he won silver.
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The moment Gout, then 16, ran a wind-assisted 10.04s for the 100m at the All School Championships in Queensland in December then the next day broke Peter Norman’s 56-year-old record for the 200m, he was vaulted to a new level in Australian sport.
The fact that he ran faster than the sport’s greatest ever athlete, Usain Bolt, at the same age prompted comparisons with Bolt and raised expectations. It also drew warm recognition from Bolt, who saw the likeness in running style.
