Sheppard remembers what she first saw in Gout five years ago. “It was like a punch-in-the-gut-type feeling. He was the whole package.” But he needed work. Gout walked on his toes, so they focused on getting his heels down and lengthening his Achilles. His technique was wild, too, particularly his upper body. “You know those things in front of car yards?” she asks, waving her arms in the air like an inflatable tube man. “That was him running.” They started training together two days a week, then four, doing the repetitive work required to reprogram his muscle memory. Gout’s in year 12 now, and training six afternoons a week. He wakes at 6.30am, drives to school and gets through his lessons – trying to do as much work as possible in class or at lunch. Then he trains, showers, does any extra study required, and heads to bed. He sets high standards, too. “I’m an A student, and most of my friends are A students as well,” he says. “There’s a bit of a competition we have to see who can get the best grades, which helps me stay on top.” His best mate and training partner Jonathan Kasiano, 16, says Gout is a chilled-out kid who enjoys watching anime – he’s seen more than 1000 episodes of the show One Piece – but also excels in everything from accounting to biology. The little kids on campus look up to him, constantly chasing a fist-bump. “When you’re walking around you can hear these whispers – ‘It’s Gout’ – but he handles it so well. He’s still just Gout to me – same old guy,” says Kasiano, who is also of South Sudanese parentage. “He shakes all that off. He’s got broad shoulders.” I talk to Ipswich Grammar sports director Nigel Greive while Gout trains on the bottom oval, on a rough track of kikuyu and bindis overlooking this hardscrabble town. A long coal train rumbles past. He notes that Gout was the winner of the academic prize for psychology last year and is a prefect this year. “As the legend of Gout Gout has grown, so too have the demands on him, but the boys are organically respectful of him having his own journey,” Greive says. “This is his sanctuary.” For many promising young athletes, a scholarship to a big US college would be the next step, giving them time to develop and emerge, but Gout has already emerged, and doesn’t need to be locked into the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) schedule. He’s also just a kid who doesn’t want to move halfway across the world, away from that sanctuary. “I’ve always liked the concept of going over to the States for college and being in that environment, but I really like home, and being away from home for so long isn’t what I’m suited for,” he admits. “Being professional, you can run wherever you want.” He did exactly that in January, flying to Florida to train alongside the reigning 100-metre gold medallist from the 2024 Paris Olympics, the showman Lyles, and his team. “It was great!” Gout says. “It was kinda weird to see it, but they’re human. They talk the same, joke about the same stuff. It helped me see that I’m not that much different from professional athletes, except being much younger. I just learnt that everything I’m doing is correct, and I don’t have to change strategy.” He mixes speed training off the blocks with building glute strength in the gym. (Sprinters need an almighty rump.) He does isometric exercises for his tight ankles and calves, and shoeless tempo running on grass. There’s pool recovery, core building and technical work. In person, Gout is still a wisp of a thing. He’s the same height as Lyles (180 centimetres) but weighs 65 kilograms to the American’s 77. Templeton watched them train in Orlando and Gout’s body simply couldn’t do the same drills as a grown man’s. Yet. “He’s far from the finished article. He’ll get stronger and bigger and faster – slowly. You don’t want to redesign him to be a 27-year-old overnight,” Templeton says. “We’re not pushing him, but the talent is just coming out anyway.” His blessings are many. One can easily get lost in the weeds when talking about sprinting with sprinters, but they all note similarly arcane and admiring traits. The upright stance. The neutral hip position. That covetable stride length. But the first thing every expert notices is the ground contact that Gout makes. It’s obvious even to the untrained eye, while watching him warm up. The force with which his steps hit the ground is audibly powerful. Jarring even. “One of the misconceptions about running is that you want to get off the ground,” says Matt Shirvington, the Sunrise host and former Australian champion over 100 metres. “But one thing that you really value as a sprinter is ground contact.” Your feet are basically the pistons in the engine. “Gout does it like a V8 Supercar – his transfer of power is just incredible. I haven’t seen anyone do that so naturally at a young age.” Yet what’s most exciting is how much room for improvement is still there. During his acceleration phase, for instance, Gout swiftly rises into an upright gait, but as his body develops, there are early gears still to find. “He’s almost jumping from first to third,” says Shirvington. “But that’s like morning mist. It’ll be there for a little while, and it won’t last long.” Sheppard says they’re only just beginning diligent work on his starts, because his current, growing frame – and limited dorsiflexion (mobility of the ankle joint) – makes it hard to get his body into those shapes. What Gout needs to learn right now is how to say no – whether to endless autographs or every single selfie. Sheppard is happy to be the bad guy (“That’s just me – I don’t have to try”) – but she’s also helping him learn to set his own boundaries. Tonight at the club meet, Gout takes photos for 10 minutes, but when it’s time to go Sheppard sets him a task: leave without stopping. Immediately a man approaches with a deferential request: “Excuse me please, Gout. Mind if I get a photo?” It’s easy to rebuff a rude interjection – tougher to turn down such a polite entreaty. “Sorry mate,” Gout says without slowing. “I can’t right now.” “Good boy,” whispers Sheppard. “Well done.” Later, he likens protecting his personal time and space to the safety instructions on a plane: you need to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others. “At first I felt bad saying no, but often I feel an understanding from the people I turn down and that makes me feel more at peace with it,” he says. “I just try to keep a level head and a smile on my face.” He’s had a good run with relative anonymity, too. Gout’s been destroying junior records for years now and gone viral for videos of his barnstorming runs. His team has done well to hide his light under a bushel. “We got all these offers to do fly-on-the-wall documentaries, but we just wanted to let him be a kid,” says Templeton. “We don’t want to run him into the ground or maximise everything because if there’s anything that will get in the way of a talented young runner, it’s distractions.” Fame isn’t all bad, of course. Gout began to sense the broadening mainstream interest in him last year when a man stopped to shake his hand, having flown from Melbourne to Queensland to see him race. “People are willing to spend money, and take a day out of their lives to come and watch me for 20 seconds? It’s crazy, but I love the idea of being that story. I’m 100 per cent trying to look at the good side of fame.” He’s also trying to embrace his rising stature. In a podcast chat with Lyles, he told the champion sprinter that he was after him – “I am coming for that spot” – with a credence born of belief, not bluster. In a sport of chest-beating macho men, Gout seems to have just the right amount of swagger. And the Usain Bolt comparisons? Their cadence, or stride rate, is deceptively similar, yet Bolt stands a colossal 195 centimetres. They are not one and the same. “I’m Gout’s biggest fan and advocate, but I’m cautious about any lavish statements,” says Templeton, playing down the popular parallel. “Usain Bolt was the greatest ever – so there are worse things people could say about you – but he’s just trying to be Gout Gout.” On his phone’s home screen, there is a single sentence in white: You’re going to be an Olympic champion. His confidence comes naturally, born not only of talent but also – critically – faith. “I don’t have to force it. I don’t have to think about it,” Gout says. “I’ve never been that person to tell you to your face ‘I’m gonna beat you,’ but as I get stronger I get more faith in myself, and I know that whatever I do I’ve got God behind me. Whatever I do is in God’s plan.” Gout wears a heavy gold crucifix around his neck, and goes to the occasional Catholic church service, but isn’t committed to any specific Christian denomination. He simply prays and reads his Bible. He likes the stories of characters overcoming challenges, meeting each test with trust in the Lord. “I’ve been given the gift of running. I feel that in my heart when I run. I feel at peace. It’s like the ocean – it flows and crashes, and it’s loud, but it’s still. That’s what I feel when I run.” Sheppard isn’t fervently religious, but she too senses a shared destiny. “We both feel that we’re guided,” she says. “I don’t know if that makes sense. It’s a weird feeling.” There’s a harsh question to ask here about whether a high school athletics coach is the right person to guide Gout into his future. Sheppard’s not offended. “The question is whether I’ve got it?” she clarifies. “People in the background would say, ‘Anyone could coach Gout.’ That would be the consensus. We’re almost sitting here waiting for him to lose a race and for people to say, ‘Get him away from her!’ ” But she’s been learning and working with young athletes for a quarter of a century at a school with a track program the equal of any in Australia. It’s not her first rodeo either, having coached national 800-metre record-holder Joe Deng. She outsources expertise – from physiology to psychology – but keeps the immediate team to a lean and trustworthy handful. “What is it they say? ‘One in four people in your circle don’t have your back?’ That’s a fact, so you keep your circle small and your network big,” Sheppard says. “But I also said to him from day dot, ‘If for some reason I don’t think I can do it, I’ll be the first one to say it, and I’ll make sure you end up in the best place for you.’ All that matters is that we go together.” That journey starts now. Both coach and athlete are certain he will break 10 seconds for the 100 and 20 seconds for the 200, probably even this year. “He’s on target for it – but when you say it out loud you jinx it,” Sheppard adds, though the ultimate target is winning both events at the 2032 Olympics. “We want double gold in Brisbane. Not going to mince words there – that’s the goal.” Gout used to write objectives and affirmations in a notebook as a way to manifest destiny, but not any more. Instead, he shows me the home screen of his phone. The top half is clear of apps, leaving black wallpaper and a single sentence in white: You’re going to be an Olympic champion. “Every time I open my phone, I see it, and it reminds me that I’ve gotta put in the work, and that I can do it,” he says. “It helps you put in perspective that you don’t have to worry about the pressure or anyone else – just worry about what you’re doing to get the job done.” I ask about his lock screen, too. It’s a Japanese cartoon character from one of his favourite anime series, Hajime no Ippo. Ippo, Gout explains, is a bullied teenager, accosted by kids one day on his way home from school. A boxer steps in to defend him, so Ippo joins the gym and discovers his own talent for hitting hard. “Ippo stepped into the ring and found his talent, and did something for himself,” Gout says. “Every time I have a race, this is the lock screen I put on my phone. Every time I look at it, it tells me to switch on. It kind of reminds me of what I’m here to do, and to put faith in myself.” ‘There’s so much pressure on him now … [We need] to calm it all down and let him be a 17-year-old boy.’Athletics Australia boss Jane Flemming When he’s done racing, he changes the wallpaper back to a photo of his friends, who he probably won’t be seeing as often this year. Gout is racing this weekend at the Queensland Athletics Championships, and in a fortnight he’ll be at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne. He’s in for a big year of exposure, including from the historic Stawell Gift (where the Easter Monday final will be on live free-to-air television) to a taste of international racing in the Czech Republic and Monaco in June and July. His year should peak in September, when he hopes to qualify for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo and challenge the fastest men in the world. “He’s not going to shrink from an audience – he’s happy to have the limelight,” says Templeton. “The feeling that the Australian public is behind him is important to Gout. My hope is that by the Los Angeles Games in 2028, the average Australian sports nut will be going, ‘When’s our boy running?’ ” With athletics medals at the Paris Games going to the likes of discus thrower Matt Denny and pole-vaulter Nina Kennedy, 1500-metre runner Jessica Hull and high jumper Nicola Olyslagers, Gout won’t be the only one we’re backing. There’s a whole new generation coming through, from his mate Myers to his counterpart female sprinter Torrie Lewis. “At the world junior championships, we had 28 finalists – the sport is on an incredible trajectory,” says Athletics Australia boss Jane Flemming. “But I’m actually reluctant to say much about Gout because there’s so much pressure on him now. I really believe we have a responsibility to calm it all down and let him be a 17-year-old boy.” With people already crowning him as the face of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics – akin to Cathy Freeman in 2000 – fellow Queenslander and Australian Sports Commission chief Kieren Perkins suggests we pause to remember the moment immediately after Freeman’s famous run. “Cathy collapsed to the floor with a look of anguish on her face. A look of relief in succeeding, that she didn’t let everybody down,” Perkins says. “To put that amount of pressure on anyone’s shoulders is not particularly fair. But to put that kind of pressure on someone so young and untested, so far out, is dangerous.” There’s added expectation on Gout to become a role model, too – an embodiment of our modern, multicultural society. As a man of Nubian and Dinka heritage, Peter Bol is also part of the Sudanese diaspora and has carried a similar load. He met Gout recently for a training session and dinner, and found him to be a conscientious student of the sport. “That pressure and expectation to represent your culture is real, but he’s going to flourish through it,” says Bol. It’s welcome, too, given the lingering fallout from the hysterical African gangs panic. “After how hard it’s been for our people in the media, there’s a definite buzz around Gout. The pride people feel in saying that he’s South Sudanese – it just shows all the good in that community, which we need at the moment.” When Gout broke the national record, among the first to congratulate him was Sandy Kadri, one of the daughters of the race’s previous record-holder, Peter Norman. It wasn’t bittersweet for her so much as pure excitement. The fact that he was a first-generation Australian was an added bonus for her family, given their father’s historic support of racial equality. (In what was then seen as a controversial gesture of solidarity with fellow 200-metre medal winners at the Mexico Olympics, Norman wore the Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on the dais alongside African-American runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos, as they famously each raised a black gloved fist.) “The family thinks it’s entirely awesome,” says Kadri, whose husband is from Tanzania. “Dad was a very strong advocate for the fact that we’re all born equal, and should be treated that way. He would have been absolutely chuffed.” People tell Gout he must be starting to feel “the weight of a nation” on his back, and he does at times. But never on the track itself. Out there, he understands that he’s performing for himself because he’s by himself. No training partners. No coaches. “No one can run it for you,” he says. “It’s daunting sometimes, but I just tell myself I’m human.” He’s definitely human. Avoiding injury will be a paramount concern: the faster you get, the higher the risk. A sensible progression in training will need to be balanced with races that test him. Staying humble and hungry is essential, too. “He needs to keep an attitude of gratitude to all those people around him,” says Flemming. “His family, his long-term mates, his long-term coach.” ‘We call him ‘The Snail’ because he leaves stuff behind him wherever he goes.’Di Sheppard, coach He’ll need to be steely as well, showing more than mere dedication. “Determination is probably the bigger one because there are curveballs in life,” says Sheppard. “You can have all of the passion in the world, but determination will get you through the tough stuff.” He could use a little more organisation, sometimes. On the day we meet at the track, he’s the first to finish the 400-metre race (natch), but he’s late to the start, slipping on his shoes while the others are on their blocks. After burgers at the pub, he has to sprint back inside to retrieve his forgotten water bottle. “That’s where he gets his nickname,” says Sheppard, shaking her head. “We call him ‘The Snail’ because he leaves stuff behind him wherever he goes.” He’ll need to be holistic, too – thinking critically about his own wellbeing. “Just staying healthy mentally – making sure you’re happy at the end of the day,” advises Bol. “A happy athlete is a performing athlete.” Gout is happiest, of course, when that slingshot flings him down the straight, when his feet hit the ground and propel him forward, faster and -faster. “You feel lightweight, like a feather, like you’re floating.” In that moment, in this moment, Gout Gout is neither a boy nor a man – not yet a hero and not quite a brand. When he sprints, everything makes sense physically and philosophically because he is doing what he was meant to do. Running’s a bit like that. It’s fundamental and elemental. Primeval. Pure. “Everything flows. You’re one with the air, one with the water, one with yourself. You’re in that perfect moment of being yourself,” Gout says. “You feel like lightning. Because lightning strikes really fast – for just a split second – and then it’s gone.” To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.