Brisbane’s Olympics has a face before a stadium – it’s Gout Gout

The sprinter’s real journey is a marathon as Gout Gout’s race to Brisbane Olympics begins.

Gout Gout’s race begins. It will last seven years. He’ll take a star-spangled detour through the Los Angeles Olympics before hitting full stride in Brisbane. The 2032 Games have a face before a stadium.

His name is a typo, a fascination lost in translation, an ­administrative bungle when his parents, Bona and Monica, were newlyweds fleeing South Sudan en route to Australia. Their little bundle of fast-twitch fibres’ name should be Guot Guot, pronounced “Gwot Gwot”, and we know a few of his high school mates call him GG for simplicity’s sake, but the appellation is a perfect, one-of-a-kind name for a once-in-a-generation talent.

Sprinting star Gout Gout meeting with fans ahead of the Australian Athletics Championships in Perth, starting Thursday. Picture: Athletics Australia

A unique, unmissable, mesmerising and rather mystical name, shooting from the tongue like Wagga Wagga, Djin Djin and Lilli Pilli. You’d swear a bush poet has made it up.

There’s only one Gout Gout, still at school, skinny as a rake, 188cm with legs that go all the way up to here, knees pumping like steam train pistons, a $6m contract from Adidas in his back ­pocket, his outstretched hands ­extending so high they’re reaching for the stars. His ma and pa don’t especially like the misspelt name, given the references to ­inflammatory arthritis and sore big toes, but the 17-year-old ­embraces it.

“Call me Gout,” he says.

On your marks, get set, go at the Australian Athletics Championships. He’s 17 years of age, charismatic, electrifying. The most natural runner since Cathy Freeman at the Sydney Olympics and Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. He crouches at his starting line in Perth, gold chain around his neck, glaring down his seven-year lane, preparing to contest his first ­national titles since making a poet’s name for himself by breaking Peter Norman’s famed and ancient 200m Australian record.

Australia's Gout Gout receives a hug from his mother Monica during a meet in Melbourne last month. Picture: AFP

He’ll contest the Under 20s 100m on Thursday. His PB is 10.17sec. Can he break 10 seconds? There’s the question. If he does, blow the trumpets, sound the horns, he’ll get a bigger following than our last truly great thoroughbred – Winx. Then he’ll put on his big boy pants on Sunday for the 200m, the event in which he was beaten by 21-year-old Queenslander Lachie Kennedy at last month’s Maurie Plant Meet at Melbourne.

You’d reckon Gout could win the Under 20s 100m with inflammatory arthritis and a sore big toe. His rematch with Kennedy in the 200m will be revealing. As Frank Sinatra suggested, the best ­revenge is massive success, and Gout’s greatest response to being stunned in Melbourne, when 1.2 million TV viewers saw him go down the gurgler, will be to take the Australian title from Kennedy.

How to treat Gout? With ice on the affected area. Oh, sorry, wrong Google search. He’s being feted in Perth, mobbed like he’s Cathy Freeman and Tom Hanks rolled into one, staring at a wall while wearing headphones, in a cordoned off area, to regain his sanity.

So many folks wanted ­autographs and selfies that Gout was plonked behind a table and the mob was organised into 30-minute slots. Enough Goutmania to fill a hospital ward. His finals will be called by the masterful Bruce McAvaney on Channel 7. “With Gout, it’s so much about what he might do in Perth this weekend, at the Stawell Gift, at the world championships in Tokyo this year, but the end game for him, for a lot of Australians, is Brisbane 2032,” McAvaney says. “Cathy had all of that surrounding ­Sydney … a home Olympics …. And for this young fellow to have this much attention is unprecedented.”

Queensland quinella as Lachlan Kennedy beats Gout Gout to win the Peter Norman men’s 200m final as part of the Maurie Pant Meet at Lakeside Stadium on March 29 in Melbourne. Picture: Getty Images

Nothing can be taken for granted in sport, love, life, work, play or 100m and 200m foot races, but GG has started his career quicker than the train to Woy Woy. If he wins the 100m gold at Brisbane, becoming the first ­Australian victor in the blue-ribbon event since the beautiful Betty Cuthbert in 1956, and our first male in history, they’ll give him the keys to the Breakfast Creek Hotel.

How to treat Gout? With ­patience and an understanding of where he is. On the starting line. The hype is justified, no doubt, no doubt, because you’re a good ‘un if you’re quicker than Usain Bolt at the same age. And yet the Brisbane Olympics is still a teenage dream. Put the pressure on ice. His 100m final will take about 10 seconds; his real race will extend another 2661 days. That’s a long time for a young bloke to keep his eyes on a prize. The sprinter’s real journey is a marathon.