I have seen the next Usain Bolt, and his name is Gout Gout

Gout Gout reacts after winning the men's 200m final during the 2025 Australian Open and Under 20 Athletics Championships in Perth on April 13th. Photograph: Paul Kane/Getty

You know something crazy big is happening in athletics when running commentators everywhere are falling over themselves in the race to compare Gout Gout with Usain Bolt.

It’s clearly still early days, but part of the fun is knowing the utter fallibility in predicting the trajectory of any young athlete not yet old enough to vote.

What is evident from recent performances is that Gout already has the potential to surpass much of what Bolt achieved in his heyday. Gout being the 17-year-old sprinter from Brisbane, who over the last few months of the Australian summer track season has been smashing world age-group records while looking increasingly Bolt-like in his running manner, on and off the track.

In many ways, his potential would appear to be limitless, but one of the few things we know for sure at this point in his young life is that his name was not originally Gout Gout.

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HOW ABOUT GOUT 👑👑

The kid has done it again. 17-year-old Gout Gout has secured a slice of history becoming the second fastest Under 20 man in history over 200m in all conditions, gliding to a time of 19.84 (+2.2) to win the Australian 200m title!

We are running out of words… pic.twitter.com/LWmlunAidq — Australian Athletics (@AustralianAths) April 13, 2025

Last December, when he was still 16, Gout ran 20.04 for the 200m to win the Australian All Schools Championships – the fastest time in history by any sprinter at that age, including the 20.13 Bolt ran at 16. With that, Gout also eclipsed the Australian senior record of 20.06, which had stood to Peter Norman for 56 years, going back to the 200m at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

Then in Perth last Sunday, Gout came out to win the Australian senior 200m title in 19.84 seconds. That time was ruled out for record purposes due to the wind reading of +2.2m per second, just over the legal limit of +2.0. It was a marginal advantage, given Gout started off into that wind, his time duly lauded by many as among the fastest by any teenager in history – including the 19.93 Bolt ran while still under 20. Gout’s last 100m was truly astonishing.

Gout also broke 10 seconds for the 100m in Perth, twice running 9.99, only for illegal wind readings to also rule those out for record purposes. He was back in class this week at Ipswich Grammar School in Queensland, where his coach Diane Sheppard first spotted his talent. He will have one more race Down Under this weekend, running the 120m-handicap on grass at the Stawell Gift athletics carnival in Victoria.

Gout Gout crosses the finish line in the men's 200m final in Perth. His stride length maxes out at 2.86m, equal to what Bolt reached during his 100m world record at the 2009 World Championships. Photograph: Cameron Spencer/Getty

After that Gout will turn his attention to some summer track races in Europe, having signed a professional contract with Adidas back in October. Then possibly on to the World Championships in Tokyo in September. This is where we’ll get a better indication of his potential, given most of his runaway wins so far have been against lesser competition.

At the end of the day, we all bleed red and we’re all human, so age doesn’t matter. It’s about speed — Gout Gout

Australians have no doubt he’s their new athletics superstar. His record-breaking times mean he’s already transcended the sport, the only comparison in modern times being Cathy Freeman, who won the 400m at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Although Freeman, who was of Aboriginal descent, was a more reluctant star, not always comfortable in the spotlight.

No such worries so far for Gout. If all goes to plan, he’ll be 20 years old when racing for a medal at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, then 24, and close to his peak, when the 2032 Olympics are held in his home state in Brisbane.

“At the end of the day, we all bleed red and we’re all human, so age doesn’t matter,” Gout said after his run in Perth last Sunday. “It’s about speed.”

If his tall, lean, and loose-limbed physique mirrors Bolt (Gout stands exactly 6ft), and likewise his exceptionally long stride and pumping arm action, Gout also shares Bolt’s cheerful and engaging demeanour off the track. After Gout ran his 20.04 last December the Jamaican described the Australian as a “young me”.

There is some scientific evidence behind that. According to biomechanical analysis just carried out by Flinders University in Adelaide, Gout’s stride length maxes out at a massive 2.86m. That’s equal to what Bolt reached during his 100m world record at the 2009 World Championships. They also found that Gout’s combination of “unique co-ordination patterns, biomechanics, and technical efficiency” means he may ultimately move faster for longer than Bolt.

Gout Gout: The young athletics star is better known to his mates as 'GG'. Photograph: Paul Kane/Getty

This is all assuming Gout stays injury free, or doesn’t fall victim to some of the other distractions common among superstar teenagers. What is certain for now is Australia is also embracing Gout as their new generation of athlete, conscious of what he represents.

His parents Bona and Monica left war-torn South Sudan two years before he was born, heading first to Egypt, before finding a safe path to Australia. One of seven siblings, Gout was born in December 2007, but the family name was misspelt while being translated from Arabic, from Guot Guot (pronounced Gwot Gwot), and not the same as the inflammatory disease of the feet. It’s of no great bother to the athlete, better known to most of his mates as simply “GG”.

Peter would be absolutely thrilled that a young kid like Gout has broken his record. You have no idea how ironic and beautiful that is — Matt Norman

Perhaps the most touching praise so far has come from the family of Peter Norman, whose record Gout broke last December.

It was Norman who stood alongside Tommie Smith and John Carlos after he won the silver medal in the 200m in Mexico City. That podium presentation is best remembered for the Black Power salute performed by Smith and Carlos and fully supported by Norman, who also a wore a badge in support of the Olympic Project for Human Rights.

[ Michael Johnson urges athletes to use their platforms to political effectOpens in new window ]

It was Norman who suggested Smith and Carlos each wear a black glove on one hand after Carlos left his pair in the Olympic Village, although Norman’s actions didn’t sit well with everyone back in Australia. He was overlooked for Olympic selection in 1972, moved into Australian football, and later fell into depression and heavy drinking. Though he recovered, Norman died of a heart attack in 2006.

The Australian government later apologed in 2012 for their “failure to fully recognise his inspirational role before his untimely death in 2006″ and belatedly recognising “the powerful role that Peter Norman played in furthering racial equality”.

His nephew Matt Norman, who made the 2008 documentary Salute, said “Peter would be absolutely thrilled that a young kid like Gout has broken his record. You have no idea how ironic and beautiful that is ... He was waiting for it, and he’d waited a long time, before he died. But I know he’d be really proud.”

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