GOUT GOUT interview: Aussie dash star, 17, on comparisons with ‘chill man’ Usain Bolt, gunning for gold in Brisbane 2032, his trick for dealing with his sudden fame and why he is completely happy to shun the pub

On the eve of the second Ashes Test at the Gabba last week, Brisbane’s breakfast news programme takes a break from the cricket and runs a lengthy segment about the preparations for the 2032 Olympic Games, which will take place here in the River City.

At the end of the package, one of the newsreaders laughs and confesses to her co-presenter that there is one thing concerning her above all others about the build-up to the Games. ‘Can we just wrap Gout Gout up in cotton wool for seven years,’ she says.

A week or so later, the boy who would be king, the prodigy upon whom so many hopes are pinned, the young sprint champion who is being called the next Usain Bolt, walks through the doors of the coffee shop attached to the gym where he trains, an hour outside the city.

Gout is the kid who beat Bolt’s Under-16 200m world record with a 20.04sec run in last year’s Australian All Schools Championships. In June, he set a new Australian record of 20.02sec, beating the 200m mark set by Peter Norman that had stood for 57 years.

That made him the second-fastest Under-18 sprinter in history, behind only Erriyon Knighton. In September, he was the youngest athlete competing in the 200m at the World Championships in Tokyo. He made the semi-finals.

‘The talent he’s showing is the same kind of talent I had when I was young,’ Bolt said at those World Championships. ‘And this is why I’m trying to advise him to be very careful in transition because I had a tough time transitioning into the senior level.’

Gout is still 17. He only graduated from high school two weeks ago. He will not turn 18 until the end of the month but he is already the focus of an Australian dream that he will be the poster boy for the Brisbane Games in the same way Cathy Freeman’s inspiring story dominated the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

The flames of fame are only just starting to lick around his feet. A few weeks ago, his main concern was getting into school at Ipswich Grammar for the first bell at 8.22am. He loved school. He was a straight-A student. He has other dreams, as well as winning Olympic gold in the 200m in Los Angeles in 2028. He wants to study psychology at university.

There is something infectious about his enthusiasm for everything that is stretching out in front of him. I remember talking to Michael Owen at 17 and sensing the same kind of aura emanating from him. It is a joy to sit with a young man who might be at the start of a brilliant career and to hear the optimism and the youthful ambition spilling out of him.

He is here with his coach, Di Sheppard, but she sits at another table, working. He is surrounded by good people, like Sheppard and his agent James Templeton, who trust him with his independence and are letting him breathe. He is being allowed to grow up as normally as possible for someone with such extravagant talent.

Gout does not need minders with him to conduct his first major newspaper interview. There is no fuss, no entourage. The kid is mature and wise beyond his years. For now, expectation still fuels his dreams. Comparisons with Bolt do not daunt him. They inspire him.

‘It’s definitely inspiring,’ Gout says, ‘because to know that the rest of the world thinks and believes I’m looking like him and could potentially be him is something that can only fill me with confidence. And to be compared to the greatest athlete I’ve ever seen technically is amazing.

‘Hopefully, I can be up to their level and up to the point where we’re being compared because of titles, records, gold medals and stuff like that. My ultimate dream is Olympic gold, hopefully in the 200m in Los Angeles in 2028 and then on to Brisbane in 2032. So it’s pretty cool, for sure.

‘I try and study other sprinters, not just Bolt. I definitely look at the way they move and the way they present themselves. Especially being on the biggest stage in the world, you’ve got to control your nerves, control everything about it.

‘So I think Bolt’s definitely a prime example because he doesn’t really let anything get to him. He’s a really chill guy. He’s definitely up there in my all-time greats. In track and field, I’d mention Noah Lyles, obviously. He’s a good mate.’

I ask him the question that young superstars always get asked: how does he feel about all the sacrifices he is making for his sport? How does he feel about having to give up part of his youth, going to parties, going to bars, to pursue the dream of Olympic gold? Gout is ready for that.

‘Yeah, it’s not really difficult because I don’t see it as a sacrifice,’ Gout says. ‘I just see it as steps you got to do to become the best in whatever you want to do. It’s hard to explain, but it’s not a sacrifice if you’re doing what you want to do.

‘And those things, you can always do them later after you retire and stuff like that. And so it’s just focusing on what you got to focus on and just building your life so you can enjoy it after your retirement.

‘So, are my buddies starting to go to bars and things like that? Not really. My whole friend group is made up of athletes so they’re very strict with drinking. I guess there’ll be that one occasion for an 18th birthday or stuff like that, just to celebrate, but most of the time it’s really just chill stuff.’

A few more things about athletics’ hottest young star – favourite musical artist: J. Cole, favourite drink: peach iced tea, favourite food: ramen, favourite city: Brisbane, favourite athlete: Lionel Messi.

Gout was born in Australia to parents who fled the conflicts in South Sudan. He is the third of seven siblings. Some of his success – analysts are calling him the most marketable athlete in Australia – has already enabled him to help change their lives.

Just over 12 months ago, he signed a bumper sponsorship deal with adidas said to be worth around £3million over the period leading up to the 2032 Olympics. ‘The $6m man: the race for Gout Gout’s signature,’ a headline in the Sydney Morning Herald said when the deal was announced last year.

And so he trains out here in the Brisbane suburbs, a third of the way between the city and Toowoomba in southern Queensland. The Brisbane Lions Aussie Rules team uses the same facility. They’re going through pre-season training on the pitch outside.

Gout’s inside. Training starts at 9am. There’s speed work, drills with medicine balls, technical work on starts, recovery and then a gym session, lifting, box jumps. After that, he has a massage session. Training finishes about 2pm. ‘Then I go home and hang out with my friends,’ he says. ‘Probably play video games and just chill on my phone.’

Gout is young enough to say that his favourite city is still Brisbane but old enough to have seen Monaco for a Diamond League meeting and to be dreaming of seeing New York one day soon.

He holds Bolt in high esteem, obviously, but he talks with as much admiration about Lyles, the men’s 100m Olympic champion and 200m world champion, who has taken him under his wing and acted as a mentor to him. His favourite athlete, though, is neither Lyles nor Bolt. It is Messi. Gout is a football fan. He supports Manchester City.

‘If there was one sporting event I could go to, it would be the World Cup final,’ he says. ‘I stayed up into the middle of the night to watch the final in 2022 between Argentina and France, when Kylian Mbappe started that comeback and it went to penalties I was shouting and screaming. I think I woke the whole house up.

‘Usually, my friend group, we’re really big on playing pool. So we go to some pool spot we know and we’ll be there for a couple hours. And I would go to this one friend’s house and then we’d just chill around, play. He has a basketball court, so we might shoot a couple of hoops, watch a movie and just talk.

‘In school, I was just a normal kid. Six periods and two lunch breaks. Psychology and maths are my favourite subjects. And accounting, surprisingly. But I was committed. I was pretty much a straight-A student. It’s always something you can fall back on regardless of what you do.

‘It was normalising, too. I liked that about it. You can put aside track and field or whatever you do, just focus on studies like everyone else. It makes you feel normal, in a way. Occasionally, the little kids might treat me different but with my friend crew, I was just another one of the guys.

‘And why do I love psychology? Part of it was I felt I could help myself in my sport. I’m interested in the way our minds interact with our body and our attitudes and our behaviours and how different stuff you do changes how we think.

‘I’m all professional, of course, and I am seeing a psychologist, but learning about it in school definitely helps with pressure and anxiety and just trying to… track and field is a very lonely sport, so it helps with your mental side and how to prepare for races, how to handle yourself.’

Gout was surrounded by huge hype when he ran at the World Championships in September and met his goals by reaching the semi-finals but the competition was a lesson for him in the rise in scrutiny that will soon be his constant companion.

‘I felt the step up,’ he says. ‘It’s the biggest stage, apart from the Olympics. I learned a lot for sure about myself and how to deal with the pressure. And I think just the way I held myself, I was pretty happy with that.

‘I put a lot of pressure on myself, being a young kid and just trying to be the best I possibly can. So I think I learned to just try to have a bit of fun with it. I definitely learned that the more fun I have with it, the better I compete, the more I enjoy it.

‘My coach is also telling me about the importance of saying “no”. Especially being more out there and being more known, there’s definitely a lot of media stuff that comes with it, a lot of sponsors and stuff like that.

‘But I think learning to say “no” is a very important part because you’ve got to keep some self for yourself. My coach says: “You don’t want to give away too many pieces out of the pie because you want to keep some for yourself as well.” She says it’s part of learning how to be a professional athlete.’

Gout is handling himself perfectly so far. In athletics’ post-Bolt world, there is still a yawning chasm to fill, a space that the next superstar can stride into. Gout has the charisma and the seeds of the talent to be that man.

The presence of a figure like Sheppard is a big asset. ‘She’s not only a coach, but she’s also like a life coach,’ Gout says. ‘She teaches you everything you need to learn. She’s basically a second mother, for sure.

‘She sees things you yourself can’t really see and it’s a great relationship, and a relationship you have to have to move forward, of course, and become better. But that relationship with athlete and coach is very important.’

Sheppard is circumspect but she is also bullish about her prospect’s hopes. ‘The sky is the limit,’ she says. Gout’s stand-out goals for 2026 are to win the 200m at the World Under-20 Championships in Oregon in August and to become the first Australian sprinter to dip under 20 seconds in the 200m. More and more Diamond League meetings will follow, too.

‘I just see myself inspiring the next generation,’ he says. ‘I want to be that role model for kids, older people, people my age, to look up to and see that no matter what sport you’re doing, no matter where you come from, you can truly be whatever you put your mind to.’