Gout Gout: The 60 Minutes Interview

Introduction to Gout Gout's Sprinting Phenomenon00:04

There may be no sport older than sprinting, and there's something singularly intoxicating about speed, about watching the fastest humans on the planet thunder down the straightaway like Usain Bolt. All the more so when they've navigated a circuitous path to get there. Remember the name Gout Gout, an 18-year-old Australian. When he's not watching anime or taking photos on his Kodak camera, he's running and winning races in roughly the time it takes to spit out this sentence. By the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles in just over three years, Gout Gout could bolt to a medal.

Fix your eyes on lane six, the runner in the maroon shirt. 16 months ago in the Australian High School Championships, Gout Gout, then an 11th grader, ran a stunning race. >> A really good start there. And now we really start to open him up. So let the legs loose and let the kid run. << One imagines a car versus a fleet of bikes. Legs pumping like supercharged pistons. >> He is OUT OF THIS WORLD. THAT IS not human. << Gout turned in a time of 20.04 seconds in the 200 meter dash, clocking the fastest time in Australian history, breaking a mark set by another runner at the 1968 Olympics.

These are adults record. Yeah, but these are adult times and me just a kid. << Gout's time in the 200 also broke the world age group record set in 2003 by Usain Bolt, the Jamaican eight-time gold medalist, considered the sport's greatest ever. >> This race, you basically became the fastest 16-year-old in history. << >> My first couple steps, I had a good start. And if I have a good start, it's kind of over cuz my top end speed is great. And once I get in the top end speed, I'm flying. <<

What is running nourishing in you? << >> Running just feeds that inner child in me that wants to feel free. Running makes me feel like myself for sure. << >> This is what you were meant to do. << >> Yeah. This is what I was pretty much put on this earth to do and that's what I'm doing. <<

It's made him an overnight sensation. He keeps getting faster and on his current trajectory, he could be a force at the LA Olympics in 2028. Four years after that, the ultimate home game. >> We're in Brisbane, you know, like this is home. Place I grew up. << Brisbane, the only home Gout's known, hosts the 2032 Summer Games. Gout will be 24 then, the age when sprinters tend to hit their stride. >> So, let's watch the young SUPERSTAR RISE. HE'S FLYING. HE WILL BE GOUT OF THIS UNIVERSE. << The reaction was warranted. >> Unbelievable. << He didn't just win this race. The time qualified him for the World Championships.

Coach Dy Shepard's Role and Discipline03:00

The huge new personal best. << If you worry all the hype is enough to inflate the ego of a teenager, don't. Note the woman in the visor. That's Dy Shepard, Gout's coach, the only one he's ever had, a grouchy grandma about to break up all the fun. >> Do we need to chase the attention? I don't like the attention. It's not my cup of tea. Gout handles it totally different to me. But good cop, bad cop. << >> You're okay being the bad cop? << >> Hell yeah. It doesn't bother me one bit. <<

Hey, mate. << When Gout acts his age and goofs off at practice, his coach isn't having it. >> Any excuse for real? But like if I did a curve ball and the wind took it, you know, << >> you're lucky you can run. <<

This is a story of next big thing energy of his limber legs and her bad knees. It's also a throwback story, a tale of old-fashioned values and virtues, not least loyalty and patience.

Background and Discovery04:01

We begin in 2005 when Gout's parents immigrated from South Sudan to Brisbane, Australia's third largest city. Their second son of seven kids, Gout was born in 2007, his double name in keeping with Sudanese tradition.

When Gout was the equivalent of a seventh grader at Ipswich Grammar, Shepard, then as now the school's track coach, spotted him racing classmates. >> You're running around with your friends and this woman says, "Hey, come here." << >> Yeah. Cuz previous to that people would be like scared of her because she's cranky. So me being a 12-year-old 13-year-old kid I'm like am I getting in trouble? What's going on? And then she calls me over and she's like you should come to track and field training. <<

I'm guessing you won that sprint across the field that day. << >> Of course. Of course. They were showing me a particular boy and Gout was running against this particular boy and I'm just gone, "No, no, who's the other kid? Who's that? I want him." << >> What did you see? << >> I looked at him and just went, "Oh my god." Something just gut punch. It was just like, "This kid's a real deal." << >> You saw greatness from << >> from that day I saw him. So I was just talking to the junior school headmaster and I'd said to him that, "Watch me, I'm going to make that one a champion." He thought I was mucking around. <<

She never mucks around. She has no formal track background, but her son was a fast kid with big ambitions. In the early 2000s, when he was a student at Ipswich Grammar, she inquired as to how to become a track coach at the school. She was told that only school employees could coach. Fine. She quit her job at a supermarket and took a job handing out school uniforms so she'd be eligible.

Soon after starting to train with Coach Dy, Gout was winning grammar school medals and trophies, and in time an agent. Then something funny happened. Or didn't happen. For all the attention and opportunities, Gout stayed in school where in December he graduated with straight A's and he stayed with Coach Dy. It's a pretty crazy dynamic: old white lady and a young black kid, but it works perfectly. >> You appreciate there's something almost like a movie like cinematic about << >> straight out of a movie, << >> but it works. << >> Yeah, indeed it does work. And I guess our personalities kind of filter off each other like all on the same level and we're all learning. So, it's a great relationship. <<

Gout's Unique Physique and Development07:00

If the coaching relationship is singular, so is everything about Gout. There are inevitable comparisons to Bolt, who recently said of Gout, "He looks like young me." But Gout recalls few other sprinters. For one, there's his unique physique, more befitting a runner of longer distances. Gout is 6 feet tall, less than 150 lb, all tendons, bones, and ropey muscles. By comparison, Bolt ran at 6'5, 207 lbs. Where Bolt exploded from the start, Gout can struggle off the blocks.

Try the arms. It's the midrace speed endurance. Faster hands. Let's see it. All of you. << His ability to sustain top speed of roughly 25 mph makes him extraordinary. But he's still an unfinished product. And Shepard says failing to account for that can bring about injury and burnout. >> If I tried to make him super quick now, I'd break him. You can't have a sprinter's approach to sprinting. The fact he's a kid, he's got so much more physical development. Like he only really hit puberty in the last 12 to 18 months basically. << >> Really? << >> Yep. I had to deal with a lot of growth issues with Gout. When I met G, he walked right up on his toes. Took me 6 months to get the heel down and it wasn't all the way down. He still walks. That's why he looks like he's got these springs in his legs. <<

Dylan Hicks, an expert in sports biomechanics and a movement scientist at Flinders University in Adelaide, recently published an academic paper on sprinting based on his country's new star. >> Everybody has springs in their legs because we've got these things called Achilles tendons, but when we have them at a longer length, Achilles tendons are really powerful at storing elastic energy. So, we see him sort of bouncing his way down the track and using less steps than everybody else. <<

Sponsorships, Family, and Training Philosophy09:00

Predictably, brands have come calling. An Adidas deal reportedly pays Gout a base of more than $4 million over 8 years. >> Were you worried when the Adidas money came? That was going to change the dynamic and the balance. << >> I think the only time we'll have trouble is if it's a girl that I don't like. << He brings home a girlfriend that doesn't meet Coach Dy's approval. >> I'd go to mom and go, she's got to go. <<

By the way, if you're looking for classic hovering sports parents, wrong family. Busy raising their other kids and working. Dad runs a dishwashing operation at the local hospital. Mom works inside the home. Gout's parents politely decline all interview requests. In effect, they've deputized Coach Dy to help oversee their son's ascending career. The only way she rolls anyway. >> I'm guessing you and helicopter parents don't get on too well. << >> Not at all. You're upfront about this? << >> Yep. I'm going to be the coach and if you want to hover and you want to share in the glory, I'm probably not the coach for you. <<

Last summer, they held a training base in Tübingen, Germany, a sleepy college town. They were fresh off Gout's international pro debut at a big meet in Nostram, Czech Republic, where he took first in the 200, shaving time off his personal best. >> I'm big on stepping stones. I'm big on Okay, well, we've got to enjoy that, but it's a step. You're not there yet. We're not doing victory laps for what you did when you were 17 years old. How many people run 20.04? 4 men, not a boy, but men. So, yeah, you're there, but then he's got to take the next leap. <<

Recent Achievements and Future Outlook11:00

Last fall at 17, the youngest 200 meter sprinter at the Track World Championships, Gout carried great expectations into Tokyo, placing fourth in his semi-final heat. But just last month at a race in Sydney, Gout became the fastest teenager in the history of the world in the 200, running a 19.67, a time that would have won him bronze at the 2024 Olympics. Still, he's not getting ahead of himself.

It strikes me you're sprinting, but pacing your life is really important. << >> Yeah. Like it's crazy to think about how you want to run as fast as possible, but you don't want to overload too much when you're a teenager, cuz then that messes up the rest of your career. Like, you know, you got all the time in the world. <<

What do the next few years look like? << In February, they worked out with local kids. Gout and his unlikely coach believe that right now, this is the best environment as he works toward future Olympics. He is a big enough deal here that he's received perhaps the highest Australian honor: a signature line of Vegemite.

Very on brand for an up and coming Aussie athlete. << >> Yeah. << But stardom, he says, is no goal. >> You're okay with fame? << >> Me personally, I didn't call it fame. I like to call it well known in the wider community. << >> Well known in the wider community. << >> That's right. So, I don't really use the word famous, but you know, I'm just well known. You're doing okay with being well known in the wider community? << >> All right. Yeah. <<

See how Usain Bolt and Gout Gout stack up against each other in the 200. Easy to see how he might break that Usain Bolt record at 60minutesovertime.com.