Gout Gout following Usain Bolt’s blueprint to greatness after Golden Spike triumph, new Australian record

It was in December that Gout Gout was contacted about making his European debut. Organisers wanted a slice of the ‘next Usain Bolt’, and on Tuesday the teen freak delivered in stunning fashion.

A few days after Gout Gout broke Peter Norman’s 56-year-old Australian 200m record in December, his manager received a call from the Czech Republic.

James Templeton had directed the careers of some of the world’s best athletes, including Kenya’s Olympic champion David Rudisha, so he was a familiar face on the world circuit and it was an old contact calling.

The Ostrava Golden Spike meeting is one of the premier events on the European circuit and probably best known for being Usain Bolt’s favourite track, given he raced there nine times throughout his brilliant career.

Now Ostrava wanted the next Bolt.

Fast forward just over six months and Gout lived up to all of the hype and expectation, producing a Bolt-like performance to break his own Australian record in a stunning European debut which put the rest of the world on notice.

The 17-year-old had taken time out of his Year 12 studies in Ipswich to race in Ostrava and announce to his competition that he’s every bit as good as the viral videos they’d all seen of him on social media.

Australian teenage phenom Gout Gout lit up the track at the Ostrava Golden Spike. Picture: Sonya Maleter/World Athletics

Gout ran 20.02sec with no wind to speak of and only 10 men have ran faster in the world this year. He expects to go sub-20 at his next race at the Monaco Diamond League in an under-23 200m race on July 11.

“Get some more races in me and it [20 seconds] will drop for sure,” Gout said. “I feel good. New personal best, new national record in my first European race.”

The romance of making his European debut at the same track as Bolt did just continues the symmetry between the pair.

Bolt has already acknowledged the Aussie teenager looks like him when he runs and the way Gout powered home over the final 20m to run down Cuba’s Reynier Mena – who’d won the past two Diamond League 200m races – had all the hallmarks of the eight-time Olympic champion.

Australian teenage phenom Gout Gout lit up the track at the Ostrava Golden Spike. Picture: AP

The great Jamaican ran 20.28sec in 2006 at his first visit to Ostrava and then went on to set the meet record of 19.83sec as a 21-year-old in 2008. Later that year he won his first Olympic gold medal.

Interestingly Bolt ran 19.93sec close to his 18th birthday, Gout’s 18th is still more than six months away and he’s already run an illegal wind-assisted 19.84sec at April’s Australian championships in Perth.

And to add more to the theatre, the pair share an affinity for English football giant Manchester United with Gout wearing a United shirt to the press conference in Ostrava.

“It definitely feels great to be compared to Bolt,” Gout told the world’s media.

“I’ve heard that a lot of sprinters run here really good. I know Usain Bolt ran here nine times, so the event clearly has a great tradition.

The Ostrava track was always one of Usain Bolt’s favourites. Picture: AFP

“Who doesn’t want to be Usain Bolt? Being compared to Usain Bolt feels great, but I would like to put my personality in the upcoming story.”

The main chapter of his story this year is the world championships in Tokyo in September with the Ostrava performance showing he’s not just a potential finalist, a medal isn’t out of the question.

To claim a scalp of the Mena, the form runner in Europe and do it in such an emphatic way has Gout’s confidence sky high.

Notoriously a slow starter he was within touch at the top of the straight and then at the 160m mark looked like he went up a gear – it’s actually him maintaining high-end speed which is tough to do in the 200 – while Mena was in quicksand. On the line the gap was widening.

“I’ve felt stronger in training these last couple of months and I’ve felt good since I got to Europe last Thursday,” he said

“I knew Mena would come hard at me the first 100 but I was confident I’d be close enough to come home strongly in the second part of the race which is of course my stronger part.

“I felt calm but strong as I came off the turn and was confident I’d be strong enough to get the win.

“I don’t feel any pressure. Because as soon as I step out on that track, it’s just me by myself and what I’ve got to do — my favourite thing, and that’s to run.

“So, I just go out there and run and nothing stops me from doing that.”

It was a stellar night for Australia with another teenager Cameron Myers running a personal best 3min29.80sec in the 1500m, a new national U/20 record while Peter Bol wound back the clock, winning the 800m in 1:43.80sec, just .01sec off his own national record.

Originally published as Gout Gout following Usain Bolt’s blueprint to greatness after Golden Spike triumph, new Australian record