Gout Gout’s incredible record-breaking run in Brisbane has captured the attention of the world — and now it appears none other than Usain Bolt has weighed in on Australia’s teenage sprint sensation.
Gout shattered the oldest record in Australian athletics on Saturday when he ran the 200m final at the All School Championships in just 20.04 seconds.
The time surpassed Peter Norman’s legendary 20.06 from the 1968 Olympics final, with Gout now the fastest Australian man in history over the 200m distance.
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He is also the fastest 16-year-old ever and second all-time among under-18s — with Bolt below him in both categories.
Gout is getting used to being in good company, having already signed with Adidas and locked in a training session with reigning Olympic 100m gold medallist Noah Lyles.
But Bolt’s reaction to the Aussie’s 200m victory in Brisbane is something else.
The Jamaican sprint legend appeared to take it upon himself to react to Gout’s performance when he spotted a clip of the race on Instagram.
“He looks like young me,” Bolt wrote back in a direct message to Jumpers World, which shared the screenshot.
Gout replied to the post with a fire emoji and reposted it to his own stories.
Bolt never ran faster than 20.13 in 200m races as a junior but began breaking senior world records at the age of 21.
He lowered the 200m record for the first time in the final at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, running 19.30 to win gold the day before he turned 22.
Gout turns 17 later this month and will be 20 years and seven months old when the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics roll around.
While there is plenty of water to go under the bridge yet, Australia will be salivating at the prospect of a 24-year-old Gout starring on home soil at the Brisbane 2032 Olympics.
Gout’s freshly inked Adidas connection will surely stoke the fire for more attention in the coming months before his planned debut on the global stage at the 2025 world championships.
But for now his Australian record run has achieved the same goal.
Beyond Bolt, his performance also received two exclamation marks from Justin Gatlin, the American star who won 100m gold at the Athens 2004 Olympics.
Gatlin served a doping ban from 2006-10 and returned to battle Bolt for years before eventually beating the sprint legend at the 2017 world championships.
Gout, meanwhile, is sharing the love even with his rising levels of stardom.
He celebrated fellow Queenslander Terrell Thorne’s new Australian under-18 record in the 400m on Sunday.
Thorne ran 45.64 to smash his previous best by eight tenths, with the time surpassing Peter Greene’s under-18 record of 45.96 that had stood since 1989.
“TT on the map,” Gout wrote.
“Superb run,” six-time national 400m champion Steve Solomon said of Thorne.
Thorne had finished runner-up to Gout in the record-breaking 200m final a day earlier.