Usain Bolt issues warning to Aussie Gout Gout after he beats sprint legend's record

Usain Bolt has sent a warning to Aussie teen sprint sensation Gout Gout after the 16-year-old broke his long-standing record. Gout rose to prominence earlier this year following several impressive victories over the 100 and 200m distance and holds several Australian under-16 records.

But his fame soared after at the U20 World Championships in September when Gout beat Bolt's 200m record time at the event, which has stood since 2002. His 200m dash was clocked in a time of 20.60 seconds - which was 0.01 seconds faster than Bolt's time.

It led to many drawing comparisons between the 16-year-old and the sprint king. Eight-time Olympic Games gold medallist Bolt's personal best when he was 16 over 200m was 20.13 seconds, while Gout’s is 20.16 - only 0.03 seconds slower.

And after Gout took home silver in the 200m event at this year's World Athletics Under 20 championships in Peru, the Aussie spoke on the comparisons to the Jamaican sprint star. "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," Gout said after claiming silver. "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."

And Gout's performances have now even got on the radar of the Jamaican. Speaking on the High Performance Podcast earlier this week, Bolt opened up on his rise up the sprinting ranks as he warned Gout not to expect to keep beating better competition.

"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.

"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."

Sally Pearson believes Gout Gout is something special

Australian gold medallist Sally Pearson has also bought into the hype of Gout after his second place in Peru saying, "Maybe we are seeing the next Usain Bolt". "How lucky are we to have that in Australian sport.

“What you see of him on those videos is pretty impressive and, god, he’s going to be at the ripe age for the Brisbane Olympics coming around in a home country,” Pearson said. “God, he’s just going to set the world on fire, I think.

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"He’s doing the blue-riband events, as well, which everyone wants to see, so that’s going to take a lot of, I think, courage from him to be able to step up and have that belief in him, which he obviously already does, but to hold onto that all through a couple of Olympic cycles that we’re going into [leading up to] Brisbane.

“I think it’s very special for Australian sport and the Australian community to be able to see someone who could be quite dominant in Brisbane in the blue-riband events in athletics. It’s going to just be electric.”