Humble and reserved, Olympic men's 200 metres champion Letsile Tebogo isn't one for hyperbole. So when the reigning World Athletics Male Athlete of the Year forecasts a bright future for 17-year-old Australian phenomenon Gout Gout, it's worth sitting up and taking notice. "He can be one of the best in the history books if he continues with the hunger that he has right now," Tebogo told reporters in Melbourne. "He could go very far." Tebogo is in Australia to compete at Saturday night's Maurie Plant Meet at Melbourne's Lakeside Stadium. He is coming off a superb 2024 season, in which he ran the fifth-fastest 200m of all-time (19.46 seconds) when he won Botswana's first Olympic gold medal at the Paris Games. Gout will contest the Peter Norman Men's 200m in Melbourne but won't face off with Tebogo, who has chosen to run the 400m. Tebogo's arrival on Australian soil comes in the wake of Gout's latest spectacular performance, a wind-assisted 19.98 in the U20 200m final at the Queensland Athletics Championships on March 16. Earlier that day, he ran 20.05 with the assistance of a legal wind, the time only 0.01 outside the Australian record he set in December, just weeks out from his 17th birthday. Gout broke Peter Norman's 56-year-old national mark (20.06) when he ran 20.04 at the Australian All Schools Championships in Brisbane. The performance was quicker than Usain Bolt's best time as a 16-year-old, 20.13, and second behind American Erriyon Knighton's 19.84 on the all-time U18 standings. Tebogo has been keeping tabs on Gout and he likes what he sees in the Queensland teenager. "His progression so far, I'm impressed with how he is coming along," Tebogo said. 'Rome wasn't built in a day' Tebogo has experienced the burden of having expectations heaped on the shoulders of a young athlete. He announced himself on the international stage as an 18-year-old by claiming gold and silver in the 100m and 200m at the 2021 World Athletics U20 Championships in Nairobi. In April 2022, just over a month before he turned 19, Tebogo set a world U20 record when he ran 9.96 in Botswana's capital, Gaborone. He lowered the mark twice in the same year with efforts of 9.94 and 9.91, running the latter to successfully defend his 100m crown at the world U20 titles held in Cali, before graduating from the junior ranks in 2023. A year out from his Paris Olympics victory, Tebogo reached the podium at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest by collecting silver and bronze behind American showman Noah Lyles in the 100m and 200m. Shifting from the status of junior star to Olympic champion didn't happen overnight for Tebogo. And there was a piece of advice he received during his teens that gave much-needed perspective as he made the transition. "I was told Rome wasn't built in a day," said Tebogo, who still holds the world U20 100m record. "I couldn't get the concept at first, but I got it later." Patience proved valuable for Tebogo, who also finished sixth in the Paris Olympics 100m final in a personal best time of 9.86. He believes Gout and his support team — headed up by coach Di Sheppard — will only benefit from adopting the same approach. "Slowly but surely, he will get there," Tebogo said. Although the 400m isn't Tebogo's preferred event, he has a world-class PB of 44.29, which he ran in Pretoria last March. He was a member of Botswana's 4x400m relay team in Paris, winning silver behind the United States.