It\u2019s only the beginning. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s the clear message from Gout Gout\u2019s triumphant world championships experience.<\/p>\n
On all sorts of measurements, the 17-year-old Queenslander achieved more than any other had ever done at his age by making the top 24 in the world.<\/p>\n
Gout failed to make the final but he hung tough in his semi-final, finishing fourth in 20.36sec which had him ranked 18th.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great race. I mean, being come out here in the semi-final and do my thing, it\u2019s pretty, pretty incredible. So happy to be here,\u201d Gout said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously the conditions wasn\u2019t too good, the rain coming earlier and whatnot. But I\u2019m happy to be here and just excited.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a great experience, like just to come out here at the young age of 17 is an experience not many people can experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m happy to be here. And Tokyo is one of the things I\u2019ve wanted to visit for a long time, and to visit it and get that World Championship is to my dreams come true. So definitely happy.\u201d <\/p>\n
On the hype which has followed his every move in Tokyo, Gout said: \u201cSometimes it seeps in, but I think most of the time it definitely washes over me. But I mean just an incredible thing for sure as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t wait to do more. I mean, my friends are definitely proud of me, my family proud of me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s two weeks of school holidays so I\u2019ll definitely go chill out for a little bit and then I\u2019ll hopefully study. No promises, but definitely just get back into my routine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once again his slow start left too much to do for the rising superstar who made ground over the final 100m but by then the race was over with Jamaica\u2019s Bryan Levell dominating in 19.78sec.<\/p>\n
Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo was second in 19.95sec.<\/p>\n
While he will be disappointed, Gout has already done things Usain Bolt never did at his age and he\u2019s still at school.<\/p>\n
Bolt never got out of his heat at his first major, the 2004 Athens Olympics.<\/p>\n
In seven years time at Brisbane 2032, what happened at the Tokyo world championships in 2025 will be looked at as a key stepping stone in Gout\u2019s ascension to becoming one of the best sprinters in the world.<\/p>\n
Everyone who saw him at these championships knows there is something special there and learning the processes of a major championships, including how to handle the nerves which were evident in his heat, are an intergral part of becoming one of the world\u2019s best.<\/p>\n
Not breaking the 20-second barrier will annoy the rising star and you can expect a serious assault on it next year but this wasn\u2019t about times, it was about understanding how the big world works.<\/p>\n
While the tinge of disappointment about not producing a personal best will linger initially, these world championships have given everything he needed.<\/p>\n
In every way the teenager has lived up to his end of the bargain.<\/p>\n
He was the youngest person in the field, had only raced a couple of times against men yet on the biggest stage of all he still made it to the penultimate round.<\/p>\n
In the lead-up the wise heads of Bolt and Lyles warned that while the rising star looked to have all of the tools, it doesn\u2019t happen automatic.<\/p>\n
But all of Australia was willing to watch him go through these growing pains with more than 3 million viewers watching that moment on Wednesday night which says everything about what this kid has done for the sport back home.<\/p>\n
While he was clearly nervous and ran accordingly, starting slowly before everntually warming into his work late – his final 30m was exceptional – to get third in 20.23sec was all he had to do to progress to the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
The world has been waiting to see Gout in Tokyo as much as his own fans back home.<\/p>\n
On Monday when he fronted a media conference held by his sponsor adidas – who paid $6 million to land him last year – the world\u2019s press were there to quizz him on all sort of matters.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the cut-throw the Ipswich Grammar schoolboy has already. When he was announced at the start of his heat run it was Gout who got the loudest roar from the crowd.<\/p>\n
When Bolt, the 100m and 200m world record holder, had his press conference in the lead-up to the championships, the fourth question was about Gout.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he (Gout) continues on this track, it\u2019s going to be good, but it\u2019s always easy when you\u2019re younger,\u201d Bolt said. \u201cThe transition to seniors from juniors is always tougher.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about if you get the right coach, the right people around you, if you\u2019re focused enough, so there will be a lot of factors to determine if he\u2019s going to be great, and if he\u2019s going to continue on the same trajectory to a championship or Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201dHe\u2019s very talented, with the times he\u2019s running now, and he\u2019s really been doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bolt was in the stands again to watch Gout who last year broke the long-standing Australian 200m record – which had been set by Peter Norman at the 1968 Mexico Olympics – at the Australian All-Schools championships in December, clocking 20.04sec.<\/p>\n
After the vision of the race where Gout was 20 metres ahead of his rivals went viral, Bolt commented on social media that he could see the similarities between his own running style and that of the then 16-year-old.<\/p>\n
That Australian record was then lowered again to 20.02sec in Gout\u2019s first taste of the European circuit at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava in June.<\/p>\n
While it wasn\u2019t to be again tonight, don\u2019t forget Gout is only just getting started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s only the beginning. That\u2019s the clear message from Gout Gout\u2019s triumphant world championships experience. On all sorts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1724,64,63,689,50005,9239,16741,941,102213,677,85,102212,11804,81437],"class_list":{"0":"post-152581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","12":"tag-centre-stage","13":"tag-eastern-asia","14":"tag-gout-gout","15":"tag-japan","16":"tag-meters-heat","17":"tag-oceania","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-teen-wonder","20":"tag-tokyo","21":"tag-world-athletics-championships"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}