By Vince Rugari
You’ve been told to remember the name Gout Gout. You won’t be forgetting it in a hurry.
But know this, too: we’re all getting it wrong.
In awful news for pun-seeking headline writers across the country, it turns out Australia’s newest sporting star should be known as Guot Guot, and pronounced “gwot gwot” – not like the form of arthritis that causes painful inflammation in the joints.
The 16-year-old Queenslander is the talk of the athletics world after he smashed Peter Norman’s long-standing Australian record in the 200m sprint on Saturday, with his frightening pace and running gait earning comparisons with the great Usain Bolt.
Gout’s father, Bona, has revealed that the family name was misspelled as it was being translated from Arabic when he and his wife, Monica, fled Sudan for Egypt, years before their son was born in Australia.
Official records haven’t been corrected, and so his name is legally Gout Gout, as it has been since birth – and that’s what he wore proudly on his race bib over the weekend.
Gout Gout is the talk of the athletics world.Credit: Getty Images
But his father would like the truth to be known.
“I know that Gout Gout is a disease name, but I don’t want my son to be called a disease name ... it’s something that’s not acceptable,” Bona told the Seven Network.
“When I see people call him Gout Gout, I’m not really happy for him.”
In an interview with this masthead last week, the man himself said that his friends call him either Gout Gout or “GG”.
While Bona said he intended to “fix” his name at some point in the future, for the time being, he didn’t care what people called his son.
“For me, I don’t mind. Whatever they want to call him, let them call him,” he said.
“But for myself, I know his name is Guot. That is my name myself. His mum is [also] calling him Guot.”
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