Opinion
There’s really no doubt about Gout Gout
Greg Baum
Sports columnistThe last Australian man to win a running race at the Olympics was Ralph Doubell in the 800 metres at Mexico City in 1968. Doubell is nearly 80 now; it was a long time ago.
At the same Olympics, Melbourne’s Peter Norman won silver in the 200 metres, splitting Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos.
On the podium, Norman stood by the Americans as they performed a Black Power salute, each with one gloved fist raised, pushing the cause of black emancipation. Carlos and Smith each wore a black glove and Norman wore Carlos’ Olympic Project for Human Rights badge. From a Salvation Army family, Norman was with them all the way.
Remember the name: Ipswich product Gout Gout has put the athletics world on notice.Credit: Getty Images
There were repercussions for all, but the moment and the image live on in Olympic annals and as a landmark in the pursuit of black rights. When Norman died nearly 20 years ago, the American pair flew out to act as pallbearers.
In a way, and befitting his name, Gout Gout is walking in two sets of spikes – Doubell’s and Norman’s. Seemingly, they both fit.
The sprints are the blue riband events of Olympic athletics, but always have been far out of the range of Australian men.
Now Gout is being touted not just to challenge these events, but to rule them a la Usain Bolt by winning both 100m and 200m at the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. His coach thinks he can, he thinks he can and the progress charts say he can. At 16, he’s running faster than Bolt did at the same age.
To watch him burst from the field to run away with recent races by many metres, seemingly covering twice as much ground as his rivals with each step, is to be put in the mind of Bolt.
As Michael Gleeson has noted in this masthead, Gout is running against schoolboys, but is timing himself against men. Norman had held the Australian 200m record for more than 50 years, since that high-altitude Mexico City final. On Saturday, Gout broke it.
Gout was born in Ipswich, but his heritage is in South Sudan, on a continent that has given the world any number of brilliant runners. Sadly, it’s also known for its instability, which is why there is a small but fast-growing community of Sudanese in Australia.
The fact is that Australia has always been a migrant country. Debate about migration never wholly dies down here, and, from time to time, is stoked by opportunist politicians all too ready to put a distorted face on it.
Gout is not a conscious activist as was Norman. His activism is in his being. If, when, he one day reaches the Olympics, he’ll be partly blazing a trail, partly following one.
For now, Gout is concentrating on the next immediate thresholds. They come neatly rounded off: Sub-20 seconds for the 200, sub-10 for the 100. If and when he breaches them, the world will sit up even straighter than it is now.
He carries himself with an exuberant self-confidence – too innocent to be called swagger, but necessary in a sprinter. He is only 16, and here’s the caveat: There will be a plateau, because there always is, and it’s possible that he will peak young. That’s the unknown in any athletic career.
Still the fastest under-18 time for the 200 in history was set by American Erriyon Knighton in 2021. Knighton has made the last two Olympic finals at that distance, but ran fourth in each. He’s also fighting a drug case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. As noted, sprinting even on a level playing field is fiercely competitive.
Gout has drawn some comparisons to the greatest sprinter of them all, Jamaican icon Usain Bolt (pictured).Credit: AP
It’s only natural that Australia will now load up on the Gout bandwagon. He speaks maturely about maintaining balance in his life, but the potent mix of adulation and expectation have made others before him giddy and caused some to fall.
The Los Angeles Games are a long way off, and Brisbane not yet in sight. Hopefully, we’ll be sensible enough as a nation to give him his due, but also his space. He had us at Gout Gout; the rest will in due course become history. En route, he’ll be a headline writer’s dream.
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