Sprint sensation Gout Gout is already the fastest Australian to have run the 200m, and Usain Bolt has described the 17-year-old’s appearance “like young me”. While he’s beginning to catch up with Bolt’s times, the teenager is also catching up to the towering Jamaican in height.
Gout’s running style has an uncanny resemblance to Bolt’s, with long strides and an upright stance supporting his ability to reach a high top speed, even if he continues to work on his starts.
There has always been a large difference between the pair’s heights, however. Bolt is 1.95m – or 6ft 5in – and had reached that mark by the age of 15. Gout has been slower to grow, but could still add more height to his gangly frame.
The year 12 Ipswich Grammar student was measured at 180.3cm at the end of last year, but as he prepares to race at the World Championships in Tokyo he is now close to 183cm.
His coach, Di Sheppard, had noticed the change earlier this year when returning from the Stawell Gift.
“When we got out of the car and were walking in the airport, I turned around and I felt like I had to look up more. I looked at him and went, ‘you’ve grown’. He looked at me like, ‘yeah, right’,” the longtime junior athletics coach said.
“I’ve never been wrong yet – even when mothers tell me they haven’t, I tell them to go home and measure their kid.”
Sheppard wonders whether her star student can grow more, given his father, Bona, is still taller than him and he has unusually long arms.
Sheppard has been cautious not to overload Gout’s growing body with too much strength work too soon, even if stronger legs will eventually mean faster starts.
“We’ll move into that when we can add that with some power, so it’s not about really trying to force it, because, I mean, he’s 17 and he’s still growing,” she said.
“It’s a step-by-step-by-step process, so when you hit one mark, [you say] ‘OK, we’ve got those, we can get out of the blocks in our first two steps’. We know his top end speed’s there, but you don’t drop that to work on this, you gradually improve this [his start] to match that [his speed].”
Gout will make his debut for Australia’s senior national team at the 2025 World Championships, starting next week in Tokyo.
