Gout Gout is the Ian Thorpe of athletics, born to become a champion according to one of Australia’s fastest ever sprinters.

Matt Shirvington went within centimetres of breaking the magical 10-second 100m barrier during his career and predicts the 17-year-old Queensland schoolboy will do it “a hundred times”.

Thorpe’s large feet, which some called “flippers”, were a genetic trait that helped him become the best swimmer in the world. He won his first world title at the age of 15.

Shirvington, who ran a ­career-best 10.03sec at the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games, said Gout’s physique and running style were perfectly suited to being an elite sprinter.

“When you see him in person, his physicality, it’s like his legs, bum and hip position are made out of the strongest titanium steel you have ever seen and just positioned perfectly,” Shirvington said.

“He is what Ian Thorpe was to swimming. He is built to be a runner, he is absolutely built to do it and he is letting his body do it.

“He’s got his foot off the brake and is just freewheeling, letting the machine roll. He is just a natural runner who is letting his body do the work.”

The Gout phenomenon keeps growing.

After running a wind-assisted 10.04sec, and then breaking Peter Norman’s 56-year national 200m record with a 20.04sec run at the Australian All-Schools championships in December, he backed it up again two weekends ago at the Queensland state titles.

A brilliant 20.05sec in the heat was followed up by a stunning 19.98sec – albeit with an illegal tail wind – in the final.

His achievements once again went viral on social media and one very interested observer was Australia’s fastest man, Patrick Johnson.

Johnson, whose 100m ­national record of 9.93sec has stood since 2003, has regularly reached out to Gout’s coach Di Sheppard and his family, offering them encouragement.

“When I text Di, I said enjoy it for what it is, you want to make history that is a long-lasting history that you can enjoy,” Johnson said.

“For me, I was the first (Australian to break 10 seconds) but I never wanted to be the last, that is the way I have always pushed it. Records are meant to be broken. I want to see it broken but then go to another level, not just have it be a one-off.”

Johnson, who is a member of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Organising Committee, understands the public’s fascination with breaking the 10-second and 20-second barriers for 100m and 200m respectively.

“I say to a lot of athletes, ‘It’s not as easy as you think,’” he said.

“That hundredth of a second could mean ­another couple of metres or a foot, that means you have got an extra two steps in your running. So out of the 46 steps or whatever it is you have to make up in strength, flexibility, biometrics, mindset, attitude.

“You have to understand that half the world has been trying to break the 10-second barrier and you have got ­places like China who were trying to break it for so long then they got someone there, Japan were the same.

“And in Oceania I was the only person who could do it at the time.”

For Shirvington, who spent time with Gout in Ipswich for a 7News Spotlight special, breaking 10 seconds became an obsession.

“You become obsessed with it but I don’t think that is going to be a problem for Gout,” Shirvington said.

“I think he is going to do it really quickly and really early, then it won’t even be a blip on the radar.

“It’s always on the mind as a 100m sprinter, the idea of when and how you can make that happen. Are the conditions going to be conducive enough to make it happen? A lot of my best times were in headwind conditions or still conditions and that was probably a reflection of the type of sprinter I was.

“I was more of a powerful kind of 60m runner rather than a loping, efficient runner like Gout or even Patrick back in the day.”

There are other serious contenders chasing the magical mark. Queenslander Lachlan Kennedy, 21, ran the fastest time this year, 10.03sec in Perth, this month.

Olympic semi-finalist Rohan Browning, who has a career-best 10.01sec, produced a season-opening 10.12sec last week while reigning national champion Sebastian Sultana (10.11sec) and Joshua Azzopardi (10.09sec) are also in the ­conversation.

They will all be on show on Saturday at the Maurie Plant Meet at Lakeside Stadium in Melbourne.

“We haven’t even scratched the surface yet,” Johnson said. “There is talent oozing in Australia, but what’s the pathway and where is the support?

“I mean, did anyone think someone from Ipswich was going to come and be one of the top runners in the world. We haven’t even connected (the next generation) yet and there is a real opportunity now to do this.”

Shirvington described the depth in the sprinting ranks as a “golden era”.

“We’ve got this sprint-making machine in Australia at the moment,” he said.

“The biggest cog is Gout in that machine, but it is just producing sprinter after sprinter after sprinter at the moment.

“The 100 is always going to be the blue riband event but (Usain) Bolt has put the 200 equally on par with it by doing that triple double (Olympic gold).

“Maybe this is the answer, the reason we have this crop of sprinters is the attention Gout is getting. While it is good for him, I also know how much harder you train when you know someone else is doing something great. You think, well, I need to train harder to be as good or to beat him, you believe that when you go to training and I think that’s a big part of it.”