Australian Teen Gout Gout Breaks World Age-Group 200m Record

Eighteen-year-old Australian sprinter Gout Gout has shattered records in the 200-meter dash. Sixteen months ago, as an 11th grader at the Australian high school championships, he clocked 20.04 seconds, the fastest time in Australian history and breaking the world age-group record set by Usain Bolt in 2003.

"My first couple steps I had a good start. And if I have a good start, you know, it's kinda over. 'Cause my top-end speed is great. And once I get into top-end speed, I'm flying," Gout told Jon Wertheim.

"Running just feeds that, I guess, inner child in me that wants to, you know, kind of feel free. Like, running, makes me feel like myself, for sure," he added. "Yeah, this is what I was pretty much put onto this Earth to do, and that's what I'm doing."

Last month in Sydney, Gout ran 19.67 seconds, the fastest by any teenager in history and a time that would have earned bronze at the 2024 Olympics. That 20.04 performance qualified him for the world championships, where he placed fourth in his 17-year-old semifinal heat in Tokyo last fall.

In Ostrava, Czech Republic, last summer, Gout won his professional debut in Europe by a meter. Commentators called him "Gout of this world" and "Gout of this universe."

Gout, born in 2007 in Brisbane to parents who emigrated from South Sudan in 2005, stands 6 feet tall and weighs under 150 pounds. He hit puberty in the last 12 to 18 months and walked on his toes when coach Di Sheppard first spotted him racing classmates as a seventh grader at Ipswich Grammar School.

Sheppard, the school's track coach with no formal background in the sport, quit her supermarket job to work at the school and become eligible to coach. Her son had been a fast runner there. "I looked at him and just went, 'Oh my God.' Something just gut punchy. It was just like, this kid's the real deal," she said.

"From that day, I saw him. So I was just talkin' to the junior school headmaster. And I'd said to him that, 'Watch me, I'm gonna make that one a champion,'" Sheppard recalled. He graduated high school in December with straight A's and stuck with her.

"It's a pretty crazy dynamic when you think about it. The old white lady and a young Black kid, you know? It's a crazy dynamic. But turns out it works perfectly, and wouldn't have it any other way," Gout said.

Sheppard keeps him grounded. "Do we need to chase the attention? I don't like the attention. It's not my cup of tea," she said. "Hell yeah" to playing bad cop. At practice, she snaps, "Mate, you're lucky you can run."

Sports biomechanist Dylan Hicks of Flinders University notes Gout's long Achilles tendons store elastic energy, letting him bounce down the track with fewer steps at speeds around 25 miles per hour. "If I tried to make him super quick now I'd break him," Sheppard warns, citing his ongoing physical development.

An Adidas deal reportedly pays him more than $4 million over eight years. His parents, who run a hospital dishwashing operation and manage the home, stay hands-off and let Sheppard oversee his career. She has no patience for hovering parents.

Gout trains with local kids and avoids overload. "It's crazy to think about how you want to run as fast as possible but you don't want to overload too much when you're a teenager 'cause then that messes up the rest of your career," he said. He calls his profile "well known in the wider community," not fame.

Brisbane hosts the 2032 Olympics when Gout turns 24, prime sprinting age. The 2028 Games come to Los Angeles soon after.