16-year-old sprinting ace Gout Gout sent clear message as Usain Bolt remark speaks volumes

Young sprinting prodigy Gout Gout has received a cautionary message from Olympic legend , who emphasised that raw talent alone doesn't guarantee success.

Gout l at this year's U20 World Championships in Peru when the Australian wonderkid clocked an incredible silver medal-winning time of 20.60 seconds in the 200m. His remarkable time narrowly surpassed own record of 20.61, which the track superstar set just before his 16th birthday back in 2002.

He also demonstrated by recording an unforgettable 10.29s at the Queensland Athletics Championships in March this year. To give context to Gout's 100m achievement, if he had run that time at this summer, he would have advanced through the preliminary rounds and into the first round of the men's 100m event.

However, despite all the buzz surrounding the 16-year-old, Bolt has shared some sage advice that emerging sprinters like Gout should heed. Speaking on the High Performance podcast this week with Jake Humphrey, Bolt offered a captivating glimpse into his early days as a sprinter.

He asserted that while he possessed innate talent, he was caught off guard by the amount of hard work required to realise his Olympic ambitions, reports .

"When I started out I didn't understand the concept of 'being great' because I was young. 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 and winning," he said.

Despite being in the early stages of his career, Gout has already turned heads with his prowess on the track. At merely 15 years old, not only did he clinch victory in the men's under-18 200m final at the 2023 Australian Junior Athletics Championships, he also shattered the national under-20 record.

Yet, Bolt has voiced that ultimate success comes to those who dedicate themselves to their craft. The sprint legend, now 38, admits that although in his youth he could outpace competitors senior to him much like Gout is presently doing, learning to put in substantial effort was a lesson he couldn't bypass in order to reach the apex of athletics.

"When I started working with coach (Glen) Mills and he sat me down and explained and said 'listen, everybody who is a professional has talent, so it's who works the hardest on their talent that will be the best' and that's when I understood that you can't get to the top with just talent alone," he said.

"It took me time but I learnt along the way and I got better over time. When I was 17 I was beating the seniors, in Jamaica, I was running faster than all the seniors so I was feeling like 'the man' and it was just mainly talent, but when you travel and I was on the track circuit with all the Americans and people from England, and everywhere in the world, and then you find yourself in fourth position it dampens your ego a little bit.

"But it helped because when you're this high and you get cut down to a lower size you start to ask yourself questions and try to figure out what am I doing wrong or what do I need to do. Moving from being talented and working hard to really working hard is totally different."

Gout currently holds the Australian under-16 national record in both the men's 100m and 200m. He has also set personal bests in both events in 2024 and has signed a deal with sporting brand Adidas, however, it appears he is ready to heed Bolt's lofty advice.

He told in August of this year: "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. 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."

While talk has been centred around Gout, earlier this year, a young Jamaican sprinter named Nickecoy Bramwell took Bolt's under-17 400m world record at the Carifta Games in Grenada. The youngster clocked 47.26 seconds to beat the record, which had stood for 22 years, by 0.07.

Despite witnessing his early achievements being surpassed, the Olympic icon remains contemplative about emerging talents. Bolt expressed optimism for the future vibrancy of athletics, elucidating his desire for more charismatic figures to take the stage.

"After me, it kind of went down because of who I was as a person, and how big my personality was," Bolt said. "But I think over time it will be better. I think young athletes are coming up and I see a few personalities that are needed in sport, hopefully in the upcoming years it will change."