TOKYO:
Gout Gout’s title has sparked debate however the actual query for the athletics world is whether or not the thrilling Australian teenage sprinter can fill the vacuum left by Usain Bolt.
The precocious 17-year-old — born to South Sudanese dad and mom who fled the war-torn nation through Egypt and arrived in Australia in 2006 — makes his world championships debut within the 200 metre heats in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Three-time defending champion Noah Lyles and Olympic gold medallist Letsile Tebogo could declare they’ve the suitable to be thought of Bolt’s heirs.
Nevertheless, for a lot of the tall and rangy Gout is the one who has the uncooked potential to turn out to be the undisputed celebrity of sprinting to succeed Bolt.
The Jamaican eight-time Olympic gold medallist and nonetheless the 100m and 200m world file holder retired in 2017.
Gout ran 20.04sec eventually 12 months’s Australian All Colleges Athletics Championship, solely the second athlete to file a time sooner than Bolt’s Underneath-18 better of 20.13sec.
In doing so he additionally broke the 56-year-old Australian nationwide senior file set by the late Peter Norman when he took bronze within the 1968 200m Olympic remaining.
In June, Gout lowered it additional by clocking 20.02sec on the Golden Spike assembly in Ostrava.
Bolt has taken a liking to Gout, posting {a photograph} of them along with the caption: “He appears like younger me.”
Nevertheless, the 39-year-old Jamaican has additionally warned that vast potential doesn’t at all times translate into success.
“It is at all times simpler once you’re youthful,” Bolt advised reporters in Tokyo.
“I used to do nice issues once I was younger. However the transition to senior from junior is at all times more durable. It is all about when you get the suitable coach, the suitable individuals round you, when you’re centered sufficient.”
“So there will likely be plenty of elements that can decide if he’ll be nice and proceed on the identical trajectory.”
Gout, whose household retains him grounded regardless of the glare of publicity — he nonetheless shares a room together with his “messier” older brother Mawjen — admits comparisons with Bolt are daunting.
“Within the second it feels nice as a result of everybody desires to be in comparison with Usain, however at instances it does get a bit overwhelming,” Gout says on his Australian Athletics profile web page.
“Though I do run like Usain Bolt, I do perhaps seem like him in a few methods, I am simply attempting to be myself.”
– ‘I name him Guot’ –
Gout, who will return to high school after the championships and desires to check psychology at college, will obtain all the assistance he wants to stay himself from his father Bona, mom Monica and 6 siblings.
Each dad and mom have tried to supply as a lot as they’ll for his or her youngsters. Former legislation scholar Bona is a meals technician and earns additional revenue by driving an Uber, and Monica is a cleaner.
It’s Bona who has led the battle to revive the household’s title to Guot.
James Templeton, the sprinter’s supervisor, insists in any other case.
“Gout Gout is how it will be,” Templeton advised SEN radio station.
“You realize the factor you hope to keep away from in your ankle? That is the way it’s pronounced.”
Bona is adamant that Sudanese officers made a spelling error in Arabic on the paperwork when the household left for Egypt and is livid to be related to the arthritic illness.
“His title is Guot, it is imagined to be Guot,” Bona advised Australia’s 7NEWS final December.
“I do know that Gout Gout is a illness title however I do not need my son to be known as a illness title… it is one thing that is not acceptable.”
“It is culturally essential and specifically if (household) see Guot Guot operating they hook up with the title.
“However once they hear Gout Gout they’ve misplaced the that means of it.
“His mum is looking him Guot and the identical right here, I name him Guot.”
Regardless of the end result, the teenager’s rising fanbase is already quipping that he’s “Gout of this world”.
Tokyo might be the start of a highway which climaxes with gold at his house Olympics in Brisbane in 2032.
