In the arc of life, childhood slips by in an instant. Faster, if you are Gout Gout. Already the swiftest in Australia, he is crouched on the cusp of adulthood, soon to cross the threshold into what may come next. The 17-year-old sprinter will not complete high school in Brisbane’s suburbs until the end of this year, but in the sporting realm he graduates this week. At his first major senior meet, the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, expectations abound.
The results show he is ready for more than what Australia can offer. Gout eclipsed Peter Norman’s 56-year-old Australian 200m record last year and became national champion in April. He has run sub-10 secs in the 100m and sub-20 secs in his favoured 200m – the only event in which he will compete in Tokyo – even if windy conditions have barred those performances from the record books. No Australian has officially gone under both marks.
The planet’s appetite is clear. World Athletics has already made him one of the faces of the Tokyo championships, promoting the debutant heavily on its Instagram account. His own page will attract its 200,000th follower this week, more now than Nina Kennedy, Australia’s athletics queen and the defending world championship and Olympic gold-medal winner who will miss Tokyo due to injury. Gout is on the mind of many: Usain Bolt has been asked for his opinion on the Ipswich Grammar student, as has the World Athletics president, Sebastian Coe.
But while Gout appears daily in headlines and on social media, he has done very little to generate it. He has run just two official races in the past five months – both minor meets in Europe against professional but largely mediocre fields – and has declined almost every interview. He will feature in just a single press event before his first heat on Wednesday, at an Adidas “panel talk” in downtown Tokyo on Monday. Registration is through a QR code, the only event of its type advertised in the days leading up to the championships. “Please note there will be no interview access,” the invitation warns.
A sit-down with a columnist from News Corp for the Weekend Australian Magazine was the only major insight we got into the teenager’s mindset ahead of the meet. He has even been missing from much of Australian Athletics’ world championships promotion in the lead-up, having not been part of the governing body’s major pre-meet content gathering.
Lachie Kennedy, who beat Gout at the Maurie Plant meet in March, is an unfortunate withdrawal from Tokyo due to a back injury. The 21-year-old World Indoors 60m silver medallist – who has emerged almost as quickly as Gout – is nonetheless seeking to use the meet to continue to build his profile, by offering expert commentary on SBS and travelling to Japan for networking next week.
He says Gout is different. “I don’t think he wants to be in the media as much, I just don’t think it’s something that he wants to do,” Kennedy says of his fellow Queenslander. “He doesn’t need to.”
Gout’s manager, James Templeton, says there have been “dozens and dozens” of interview requests, “which is fine, it’s nice”. But he is adamant that Gout is doing OK without injecting hours of publicity and public appearances into his days. “I’m just trying to keep it as relaxed and enjoyable for him,” Templeton says. “Yes, he’s only 17. Surely that says enough.”
In her most candid interview, Gout’s coach, Di Sheppard, told the Guardian earlier this year the life of her star pupil won’t be normal for long, and warned he will soon not be able to go out in public. “He’s at that point pretty much now,” she said. Coe said the goal for Gout should be for him to get through the next three or four years “mentally in decent shape”.
Right now, Gout appears a bubbly, happy-go-lucky character, liked equally by his friends as his rivals and largely unchanged by fame. But already there have been glimpses of the challenges faced by someone who is both a teenage celebrity and the child of South Sudanese migrants in contemporary Australia.
His father, Bona, was interviewed by commercial media last year about the family’s journey to Australia. The hospital kitchen worker told those present he would like his son’s name to be changed to “Guot”. Gout – who wants to keep it as it is – wasn’t consulted before the story rolled out. The notion that the sprinter should now be known as “Guot” has been hard to dislodge from Australians’ memories, highlighting the complexity around identity for first and second generation migrants.
Gout told The Australian newspaper last month he drives a Hyundai i30 – even though he reportedly earns about $1m per year from Adidas – because he is aware he is racially profiled. People look at him, as an Australian of African descent, “differently”, he said.
Meanwhile, tech companies amplify racial division in discussions below stories featuring Gout in the headline. Channel Seven closed comments on one Facebook post featuring the teenager last week due to the offensive nature of the discourse.
Even putting issues of race aside, Gout’s childhood experience appears unique. Education officials in Brisbane have resisted promoting his appearance at schoolboy races this year in a bid to ensure the environment remains safe and enjoyable for all. Of course, his hand-timed sub-10s 100m run last month still made it on to social media within hours.
In this context, one can see why a year 12 student might want to stick to his friends, family, textbooks and the track. But it also highlights why – when Gout does want to talk – it will be worth listening.
The coming week will be a milestone in the teenager’s life. Not only is it his first major meet, but it is the introduction of a budding star to a global audience, who get to hear that slap of his spikes along the straight and witness his effortless speed first-hand. And maybe, all will get to know Australia’s athletic prodigy just a little better.
