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Gout Gout: the teenager thriving on our unrealistic expectations · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, April fourteen, twenty twenty six. Angus Taylor will
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  Speaker 1: reveal on Tuesday a tough new immigration policy that would
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  Speaker 1: prioritize housing and social security for Australians over non citizens
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  Speaker 1: and to port visa overstayers, he says are abusing the
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  Speaker 1: appeals process. Send in the drones. The Albanese government has
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  Speaker 1: vowed to learn the lessons of the wars in the
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  Speaker 1: Middle East and Ukraine in its new ten year weapons
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  Speaker 1: investment plan, which will include up to five billion dollars
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  Speaker 1: extra on drones and counter drone systems. That's a scoop
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  Speaker 1: by our Defense and Foreign Affairs correspondent Ben Packham live
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  Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot com dot au. Every
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  Speaker 1: so often a teenage athlete comes along who blows us
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  Speaker 1: all away and the pressures on austral Aliens now not
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  Speaker 1: to pile too much expectation on sprinting superstar Gout Gout.
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  Speaker 1: He's only eighteen, and Gout's straight talking coach says he's
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  Speaker 1: two years ahead of schedule on his path to Olympic domination.
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  Speaker 1: Sportswriter Will Swanton is here in just a moment defending
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  Speaker 1: the title.
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  Speaker 2: Here, He's got a good start this morning. He charged
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  Speaker 2: out of the bend and he ran right through to
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  Speaker 2: the line.
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  Speaker 1: Will Swanton is the Australian's much loved sports writer and
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  Speaker 1: just like the rest of the nation, on Sunday, he
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  Speaker 1: was watching a young Australian man do something really remarkable. Well,
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  Speaker 1: let's just talk through this incredible race by Gout Gout,
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  Speaker 1: and the first thing we hear is the voice of
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  Speaker 1: legendary Australian sports commentator Bruce McAvaney. So much goes into
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  Speaker 1: this moment. Bruce's voice just makes me feel patriotic and
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  Speaker 1: that good things are about to happen.
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  Speaker 2: What about you, It's a bit of the Ritchie Benno.
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  Speaker 2: The sound of summer is Gout. The real beauty of
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  Speaker 2: it is that he just loves it as much as
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  Speaker 2: the rest of us. And when he thinks there's a
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  Speaker 2: special moment happening like yesterday.
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  Speaker 1: Away so he's three from the left, got out.
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  Speaker 2: I think he has that rare kind of gift of
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  Speaker 2: even adding to it because I think something like Gouts
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  Speaker 2: run yesterday for Bruce to be calling it makes it
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  Speaker 2: even more specials.
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  Speaker 1: Like Gout Gouts in front.
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  Speaker 2: He's coming along. Yeah, it was just a fantastic nineteen seconds.
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  Speaker 1: Nineteen point six eight, where's the wind?
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  Speaker 2: The wings? Legal?
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  Speaker 1: He has absolutely done.
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  Speaker 2: Whatever good he thought he might.
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  Speaker 1: He's done thirteen years of the age. It really was.
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  Speaker 1: And in the moments before the race begins, these these
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  Speaker 1: young men are so nervous and clearly standing on the
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  Speaker 1: cusp of something very very big for them. Tell me
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  Speaker 1: about the stakes here for Gout Gout, He's eighteen years old,
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  Speaker 1: he's just finished school at Ipswich Grammar. There's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of expectation on him. What did this race mean?
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  Speaker 2: It means a lot to kind of quieter in the whispers,
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  Speaker 2: like these losses to Lockie Kennedy. You know, the first
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  Speaker 2: one was a shock in Melbourne last year. But then
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  Speaker 2: it just seems to be happening repeatedly that he gets
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  Speaker 2: beaten by Lockie. He's going to the Strait.
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  Speaker 1: Gout's got a lot to do.
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  Speaker 2: We knew that he gets up alongside Law.
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  Speaker 1: Can he get to Kennedy?
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  Speaker 2: Not at the moment. Kennedy's in front. Gout's coming hard,
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  Speaker 2: very very hard. Kennedy's one, he's upset him, he's beating
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  Speaker 2: by a whiskers. But people in athletics just swore blind
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  Speaker 2: that it was all on track. A few races hadn't
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  Speaker 2: gone the plan, but it was a big one yesterday.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the two hundred meters is his baby,
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  Speaker 2: that's the event he's really going for for the Olympics.
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  Speaker 2: So it was a huge, a huge moment and you
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  Speaker 2: could tell those in those kind of nerve wracking moments
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  Speaker 2: when he's on the blocks, it just had that feel of,
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  Speaker 2: you know, it's his last race in Australia for a while.
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  Speaker 2: He knows all the hype. Obviously he wants to live
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  Speaker 2: up to the hype. In training he does these times
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  Speaker 2: which if he can do it in a race, will
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  Speaker 2: blow everyone away. But it's the fascination and the great
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  Speaker 2: appeal of track and field is that they're on the
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  Speaker 2: blocks and for two hundred meters you've got about twenty
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  Speaker 2: seconds and one chance and that's it. It's hard to
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  Speaker 2: get your head around it. It's historic, really is. I
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  Speaker 2: think we've always got one eye on the runner, one
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  Speaker 2: eye on the clock, and there's always that one moment
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  Speaker 2: of silence where everyone looks at the clock and tries
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  Speaker 2: to comprehend what's happened. And when there's a time like yesterday,
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  Speaker 2: it's this kind of outburst of oh my gosh, what
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  Speaker 2: a spectacular time. And there's no if Saw butts, you
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  Speaker 2: know that time is the time, and we've got proof
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  Speaker 2: now of this extraordinary potential, of this very charismatic young blode.
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  Speaker 1: Gout. Gout has recorded some unbelievable times in the one
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  Speaker 1: hundred meter sprint, twice breaking the ten second barrier, but
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  Speaker 1: those achievements aren't recorded as official times because of a
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  Speaker 1: technicality called illegal wind. That's where tailwinds exceed the limit
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  Speaker 1: of two meters per second.
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  Speaker 2: So Dire Shepherd is coach saw the clock and the
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  Speaker 2: first thing she started calling out was is it legal?
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  Speaker 2: What's the wind? Because if the wind was above the threshold,
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  Speaker 2: then as great a run as it was, I wouldn't
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  Speaker 2: count kind of thing. But the wind was fine, so
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  Speaker 2: the time stood and it was all good.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Dy Shepard. She's a great character to
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  Speaker 1: look at on the track. She's standing behind Gout as
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  Speaker 1: he's doing his interviews, and she's got kind of a
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  Speaker 1: mop of white blonde hair. And she's got a trackid
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  Speaker 1: axe on an advisor. She's like a character from a movie. Really,
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  Speaker 1: what's their relationship?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the whole thing feels like a movie in a way,
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  Speaker 2: and you're so right in that. You know, you've got
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  Speaker 2: this incredibly extroverted showman ship kind of young, mega talented
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  Speaker 2: guy with the world at his feet. And then standing
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  Speaker 2: in the background is the you know, he's pretty hard nosed,
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  Speaker 2: no nonsense, straight talking, straight shooting coach and.
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  Speaker 1: That's you've got one.
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  Speaker 2: You see, you see some funny moments where but it's
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  Speaker 2: a great it's a great combo, and you know, without knowing,
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  Speaker 2: you know exactly how they go about their business. It
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  Speaker 2: just seems to be a great mix of you know,
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  Speaker 2: a guy who is just full of energy and full
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  Speaker 2: of personality, and it would seem that if he had
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  Speaker 2: a coach who was full of personality like it wouldn't work.
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  Speaker 2: But it just seems like he's got the most sensible
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  Speaker 2: partner in crime there. And you know, like that idea
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  Speaker 2: of athletics the time says it all and for him
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  Speaker 2: to be doing what he's done at the age of
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  Speaker 2: eighteen proves that they work well together. But it was
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  Speaker 2: I thought. One interesting thing she said yesterday was that
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  Speaker 2: they're now at the stage where she thought they would
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  Speaker 2: be two years from now, So forget to be doing
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  Speaker 2: this time that was it was hopefully going to be
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  Speaker 2: done at the LA Olympics, if that makes sense. So
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  Speaker 2: he's so he's now two years ahead of schedule, which is,
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  Speaker 2: you know, fantastically exciting because all all the things we
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  Speaker 2: thought we may have to wait for for him to
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  Speaker 2: watch for, you know, to be a proper Olympic and
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  Speaker 2: tender is you know, it's now in the next couple
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  Speaker 2: of years, you know. And he is so lucky for
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  Speaker 2: diet to have found him and to nurtured that potential
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  Speaker 2: and to get him down this pathway. But the main
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  Speaker 2: thing is he obviously felt in love with the sport,
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  Speaker 2: and that's that's what changes everything for you know, a
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  Speaker 2: young athlete in there in the in their teens. You
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  Speaker 2: can have plenty of ability, but if you don't really
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  Speaker 2: love it, you'll you know, go in go in different directions.
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  Speaker 2: But he's just this perfect storm of freakish kind of
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  Speaker 2: natural talent and ambition and great coaching and opportunities. Because
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  Speaker 2: at some stage I would have said to him, you're
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  Speaker 2: when you're peaking at twenty four, you're going to have
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  Speaker 2: a home Olympics, not just in your home country but
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  Speaker 2: your home city. For him to pop up in one
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  Speaker 2: hundred and the two hundred, it's an amazing opportunity and
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  Speaker 2: motivation and that's always been the end game and the
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  Speaker 2: end goal, to be really hitting his straps at the
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  Speaker 2: Brisbane Olympics.
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  Speaker 1: An expectation right. Australia has a habit of heaping a
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  Speaker 1: lot of pressure on young athletes, and of course sports
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  Speaker 1: people become famous when they're very young by the very
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  Speaker 1: nature of what they do. Ian thought, Kathy Freeman, Don Bradman,
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  Speaker 1: what are the lessons we need to learn from the
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  Speaker 1: experience of those people who've you know, often really struggled
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  Speaker 1: with that pressure. How do we not make it too
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  Speaker 1: hard for this young man to be successful?
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  Speaker 2: I was thinking about Ian thought yesterday watching all this,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, it was a struggle for Ian, who
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  Speaker 2: was probably a bit younger leading up to the Sydney
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  Speaker 2: Olympics by a couple of years, maybe one or two years.
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  Speaker 2: But I think because Ian was kind of a quiet, shy,
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  Speaker 2: introverted person that made all that attention had for him
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  Speaker 2: and always felt like his his happy place was when
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  Speaker 2: it could get in the pool, put his head under
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  Speaker 2: the water, where he couldn't hear anything, couldn't see anyone
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  Speaker 2: except the black line, and he just had his peace.
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  Speaker 2: But gout, I think got loves all this.
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  Speaker 1: Oh Lord about you know what. Let's get the crowd
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  Speaker 1: all behind you, because this is a moment that will
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  Speaker 1: never ever forget.
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  Speaker 2: It also made me wonder if, like if that generation
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  Speaker 2: and for all the troubles and the awful stuff that
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  Speaker 2: can happen on social media, I wonder if it also
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  Speaker 2: makes someone like him more accustomed to attention and commentary
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  Speaker 2: and videos and that kind of thing, if you know
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  Speaker 2: what I mean. But a big thing for now I
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  Speaker 2: think is like I was saying, he's two years ahead
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  Speaker 2: of his schedule. So for now, it's all a win
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  Speaker 2: and it's all a bonus because to him and Diet,
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  Speaker 2: he's overachieving. So it's all celebrations and six seven's and
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  Speaker 2: it's all four year cycle and so all these meets
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  Speaker 2: in between are important, but they're not the big big stuff.
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  Speaker 2: So in the lead up to his first Olympics that
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  Speaker 2: I think is when it will be a whole different
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  Speaker 2: kind of attention and focus and spotlight and pressure, and
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  Speaker 2: it's the Olympics, so for the first time he'll have
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  Speaker 2: Olympic sized pressure, which is a whole different board game.
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  Speaker 2: And the really special athletes are enjoying themselves, like there's
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  Speaker 2: still little kids and so all the outside stuff. Who cares.
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  Speaker 2: So I really think he's kind of well equal to
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  Speaker 2: handle all of that. And I think we've already seen
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  Speaker 2: it because he had. You know, these losses to Lockie
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  Speaker 2: Kennedy have been you know, a bit of a slap
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  Speaker 2: in the face to him because he goes into all
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  Speaker 2: these meets as the superstar what is doubt going to do?
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  Speaker 2: But there's been a few times where he's been overshadowed.
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  Speaker 2: But we've seen from yesterday that it doesn't get to him.
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  Speaker 2: He just turns up at his next race and does
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  Speaker 2: it again. And yeah, I mean it's just a fantastic show.
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  Speaker 2: Really for twenty seconds, it's so good. If only it
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  Speaker 2: lasted a bit longer.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we'll thank you very much and we'll look forward
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  Speaker 1: to covering all of his exploits right up until the Olympics.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, yes, thanks Claire, thank you.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Will Swornton. He is a sports reporter with the Uestrali Alien.
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  Speaker 1: You can check out all his work anytime at the
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au