Olympic legend's Gout Gout warning as Aussie sprint great exposes detail about Usain Bolt
Four-time Olympic gold medallist Michael Johnson doesn't want to see Gout compete at the senior level anytime soon.
Four-time Olympic gold medallist Michael Johnson has warned Gout Gout against making the jump to senior athletics too soon after the Aussie wrote himself into the record books by breaking Peter Norman's iconic, 56-year 200m Australian record on Saturday. Gout's stunning 200m time (20.04) bumped Usain Bolt’s previous record of 20.13 seconds down to third spot for athletes under the age of 18. And to put into perspective just how fast he ran, the 16-year-old's 200m time in Brisbane would have been good enough to see him place sixth in the men's Olympic final in Paris in August.
It also followed on from his sizzling 100m heat on Friday, where he clocked a blistering 10.04, which beat Usain Bolt's previous record, however, it won't count in the official record books because of the tailwind of 3.4m/s. It took Gout until the 50m mark to hit the lead in the 100m and if he can improve his start, the 10-second barrier and Patrick Johnson’s Australian record of 9.93sec are under real threat.
Comparisons continue to be drawn between the Queensland teen and the sprinting legend, with Gout having a similar running style, physique and untapped potential as the Jamaican sprint icon. But while Gout has the world at his feet, Johnson has warned the Aussie that the road ahead gets much harder and that he needs a team with his best intentions at heart to guide him.
Johnson wrote on X: “Peter Norman was one of my heroes. Hard to believe no Australian had run (sic) faster than 20.06 over the last 56 years! “Great performances! Fun to think about his potential. But even with such great potential, realizing it is a whole different thing. The greater the potential, the higher the risk. He’ll need a solid team around him to help him navigate the journey.” Johnson was in his late twenties and early thirties when he won gold in the 200m at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics and the 200m-400m double at the Sydney Olympics.
Johnson's comments echo those of Australian Commonwealth 400m champion John Steffensen, who believes it is in the best interest of Gout to not rush to make the jump from junior ranks to senior competition too soon. “The reality is junior running and pro running are two different ball games,” Steffensen told Code Sports.
“What I would like to see with him is he gets wrapped up in cotton wool and doesn’t get exposed to senior running any time soon. He needs to keep learning and acquiring skills, I’m not knocking the kid because he is a beast but people forget that Usain had a tough few years post-world juniors.”
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Usain Bolt's warning for sprint sensation Gout Gout
The struggles of jumping from junior to senior competition is something Bolt has spoken openly about when Gout's performances first caught the attention of the athletics world. And the sprint king warned the Aussie that it takes far more than kist talent to succeed at a professional level, saying it is something he had to learn the hard way. "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," Bolt said on the High-Performance Podcast.
"I remember when I got to the professional level, and I felt like it was just going to be easy. 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."
