It’s tricky being the next big thing. There’s all the excitement and promise, but also a truckload of expectation. This is the minefield 16-year-old Australian sprinter Gout Gout and his coach Di Sheppard have been negotiating this year – ever since viral video emerged of the young Queenslander destroying a field of schoolboy sprinters with a long-limbed stride eerily reminiscent of Usain Bolt.
The Bolt comparisons have come thick and fast, but Gout, the third of seven children born to South Sudanese immigrants Monica and Bona Gout, has tried to take it in stride. He agrees it’s “pretty cool’’ just to be put in the same sentence as the greatest sprinter in history, but makes it plain this is not what he’s here for. “I’m Gout Gout, so I’m trying make a name for myself.”
