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Usain Bolt has praised teen sprinter Gout Gout after the young athlete broke his record.
The 16-year-old sprint prodigy has taken the track world by storm this year, blazing through the 100 and 200 meters and claiming multiple Australian under-16 records. In a jaw-dropping moment at the September U20 World Championships in Peru, Gout ran the 200 meters in 20.60 seconds—edging out Usain Bolt’s 2002 record by a razor-thin 0.01 seconds.
In an interview with Jake Humphrey on the High Performance Podcast, Bolt reflected on his early days as a young sprinter before he shook up the athletics world. As he reminisced, he shared some hard-earned wisdom—a piece of advice that speaks volumes to rising star Gout.
“When I started out, I didn’t understand the concept of ‘being great’ because I was young,” the Jamaican superstar said. “I was 15 when I won the world juniors, I was really young and I was really talented so I didn’t have to work as hard as it was just talent, as I was winning and winning.”
“I remember when I got to the professional level, and I felt like it was just going to be easy,” he continued. “And I got to the stage where I would go to meets and I would lose. And I was like, ‘This is strange, this is new’. So it took me a while to understand.”
When asked by Australian media in August about the inevitable comparisons between himself and Usain Bolt, Gout responded with humility. He acknowledged the honor of being mentioned alongside such a legendary figure, yet kept his focus on carving his own path in the world of sprinting.
“It’s pretty cool because Usain Bolt is arguably the greatest athlete of all time, and just being compared to him is a great feeling,” he said, hoping that one day he could set himself apart. “Obviously, I’m Gout Gout, so I’m trying to make a name for myself. If I can get to the level he was that would be a great achievement.”
Gout has drawn comparisons to Bolt from notable figures like Athletics Australia president Jane Flemming, who finds the parallels “pretty cool.” He’s posted personal bests of 20.60 seconds in the 200m and 10.29 seconds in the 100m, putting him on track to rival Bolt’s early achievements.
In 2003, Bolt set a blazing 200m record of 20.40 seconds at the World Youth Championships—a target that could be within Gout’s reach before long. Bolt’s leap from youth talent to senior contender wasn’t without setbacks; early injuries slowed his momentum, but by 2007 he captured a silver in the 200m at the World Championships. He cemented his legacy the following year with an unforgettable sprint double gold at the Beijing Olympics.
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