He is 16 years old and excited as a successor to Usain Bolt – but the drop of Australia’s gout keeps his feet on the ground

It is a delicate being The next great thing. There is all the excitement and promise, but also a waiting truck. This is the Australian mines field Sprinter Gout Gout Gout and its coach Di Sheppard have been negotiating this year – since the viral video emerged from the young Queenslander destroying a field of school sprinters with a long -term Stride which strangely recalls Usain Bolt .

Bolt comparisons have become thick and fast, but the drop, the third of the seven children born from South Sudanese MONICA and good drop, tried to do so. It should be “pretty cool” just to be put in the same sentence as the biggest sprinter in history, but it is clear that this is not why it is here. “I’m drip, so I’m trying to make a name for myself.”

In relation: Australian Sprint Prodigy Gout Gout Blazes to New 200m Heights

The Internet Buzz started before Gout left Queensland, but he grew up with each overview that the wider world saw him. In August, he won a silver medal in the 200m at the World Championships under 20 in Lima, Peru, where he ran teenagers up to two years more than him, while blocking a better personal moment 20.60s.

It was all that Adidas needed to see him to sign him to a professional contract in October, but he underlined his potential less than a week later when he made a personal turn of 20.29 at the championships ‘Athletics of Queensland All Schools in Brisbane. This race, an Australian record for under 18 and under 20, was the fastest of all Australians for more than 30 years and strengthened it in the fourth on the national list of all time, almost At a striking distance from the 1968 Olympic silver medalist, Peter Norman, venerated from 1968, the Olympic silver medalist Peter Norman’s Revered’s Reverred of 1968, the Olympic money medalist Peter Norman’s Revered’s revealed Benchmark 20 , 06s. Remember that the drop is only 16 years old.

Olympic champion Sally Pearson and the commentator renowned Bruce Mcavaney are among those of the athletics community that laughed at its potential, knowing that gout should reach its peak at the time of the Brisbane Olympic Games in 2032. This accident of Timing will only intensify Brisbane spotlights in 2032. In the years to come.

The manager of Sheppard and Gout, James Templeton, has no doubt that he will be the fastest man in Australia – and soon. But in the meantime, they work hard to keep their feet on the ground and protect it from the traps that come with early celebrity in the world of sport.

Sheppard tells the story of a conversation she had with the schoolboy a week after her return from Peru. Gout turned to her and said, “What we did was large enough, hey?” She accepted, answering: “Yes, it was really big, but we don’t act like that, right?” He just hosted his head and said, “No, we are not.”

“We both knew that it was an important moment, but we also understood that it was only part of a much longer path,” she said.

Sheppard worked with generations of adolescents as an athletics trail of Ipswich Grammar School, a historic private school based in the working class west of Brisbane. She first spied on the drop by scoring 13 years with one of her friends for a test for the GPS championships in 2020.

“I saw him running on the oval and there was just something in him and the way he moved,” she said. “I couldn’t locate him, but instinct shouted on me: who is this child?”

Sheppard has history as a talent spotter, having guided another Sudanese-Australian teenager Joseph Deng in sport 10 years earlier. Deng then broke the longtime 800m Australian record and was a Paris Olympian this year. Despite his enthusiasm about taste potential, Sheppard slowly wrapped him in athletics. During the first eight months, he only trained twice a week and continued to play football. Then she seated him and said to him, “Dude, I think you can go to the end.”

However, she continued to advance him carefully, managing a growth in growth, focusing on her technique and her training discipline. It is strong on the responsibility of athletes “because it is their trip – you cannot make someone in something unless they want to do it.”

Despite this, the speed of its development confused it. She expected him to run about 20.50 this year, but he is well ahead of the calendar, so she is now wary of predictions. “I had already crashed in a record [20.06] For 2026, but it could happen earlier if we stay on the right track, ”she says.

So far, she thinks he faces “really very good” with the Hoopla gathering. “I have talked about the drop of many of these things in the past two years because they need to know. You can’t hide anything from them because otherwise it will just come to knock them on the back of the head. So you have to keep them on the ground. Everything you do is a springboard and we are far from the summit. »»

His naturally relaxed personality contributed to this company. “He is a very relaxed and happy kid,” explains Sheppard. “It is extremely good to have around our team because it is always optimistic.”

Gout will return to the track for the Australian Championships All Schools in Brisbane this week, where he will run the 100m on Friday and 200m on Saturday. His goal will be to break the national record for Sebastian Sultana under 18 from 10.27 to 100m. It arrives with a better 10.29, which takes place in March, but given its substantial improvement over 200m since then, it should also operate much faster on the shortest distance, given the good conditions.

But Sheppard and Templeton also have an eye on an important step in the 200m. The qualification standard for the world athletics championships next year in Tokyo is 20.16, while the best brand of the under 18s in Usain Bolt is 20.13. Neither seems to be out of the question for him this summer.

Once the school’s athletics season this month, Gout will continue its sprint studies in the most difficult training ground on the planet. Thanks to their mutual adidas sponsor, he and Sheppard obtained an invitation from the Olympic champion of the 100m Noah Lyles and his coach Lance Brauman to join their training group in Florida for a few weeks in January.

Sheppard says that it will be a learning opportunity for them two – to experience the best performance environment in the world and to understand what it takes to achieve this level. She also hopes to “recover a few clues about how to manage things when the media does not run to you”.

She admits that the jump in company will be “a little surreal”, but it will not allow it to distract them from the work still necessary if the drop must go up in the rare air occupied by the fastest men in the world. “We know that work is not yet finished – we have not even reached the basic camp of Everest,” she said.

And if his efforts are not enough to keep him rooted, those of his family will be. The word is that drop may not end up as the fastest of his family. “There is a little one who is 10 years old – he says,” I’m going to be better than my brother, “says Sheppard.