As Australia's track stars strive for Commonwealth Games glory, teen sprint sensation Gout Gout has been urged to find a silver lining from his time on the sidelines.
Gout is one of many high-profile absentees from the Glasgow Games, having first prioritised the U20 world championships before going down with a serious hamstring injury.
The grade-three tear requires a lengthy rehabilitation program, ruling the 18-year-old out of action until next year.
It was a significant blow to the young gun, who has been the biggest name in Australian track for the last year and is often compared to Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt.
"He's a prodigious talent and that comes with very high expectations, but it's hard to live up to that," fellow Australian sprinter Rohan Browning told AAP.
"The first thing in this sport is always to remain healthy because you can't do any good training and can't improve if you're injured.
"Having said that, injury is an inevitability in the sport, so for him the test will be to bounce back from it.
"Maybe some forced downtime will have a silver lining."
Gout had set his sights on becoming a 200m U20 world champion in the US in August, in an attempt to emulate a young Bolt, who himself has noted striking similarities between the pair as teenagers.
In two years' time, it is expected Gout will form part of a formidable Australian 4x100m relay team at the Los Angeles Olympics, alongside the likes of new national record holder Lachie Kennedy and Eddie Nketia.
"I feel for him. He's under more pressure than any of us can probably fathom," Browning said.
"He's being graded against an exceedingly high water mark and it's just important for him to take his time and develop, and block out all the external noise.
"It doesn't all have to happen tomorrow for him. He's so young.
"He's clearly so talented and my advice to him would be to just take his time with it."
Amid all the noise, Gout is only 18 years old.
Olympic pole vault champion Nina Kennedy - Australia's Commonwealth Games flag-bearer in Glasgow - is confident the young gun has what it takes to rise above it.
"The journey to get from a junior athlete to a senior athlete was the hardest thing I've had to do," Kennedy said.
"You have injury struggles, you have mental-health struggles and the trajectory is not (linear). It is up and down and up and down for years and years and years.
"I'd say, 'Strap in, Gout Gout, it's going to be hard'. But if anyone is going to do it, it's him."
