Sprint legend Usain Bolt has urged rising Australian star Gout Gout not to forget track and field and find a good support network to keep him focused on his career as the spotlight and distractions intensify.
Gout, 18, retained the 200m title at the Australian Athletics Championships on 12 April in a time of 19.67 seconds, beating USA sprinter Erriyon Knighton’s world under-20 record (19.69) and bettering Bolt’s time of 19.93 from 2004 – the Jamaican’s fastest time as a teenager.
Gout, who also claimed the under-20 100m national title, went under the 20-second mark at last season’s championships with a wind-assisted 19.84 and previously set the quickest time by a 16-year-old over 200m when he ran 20.04 in 2024.
Offering advice to Gout, who he has previously said “looks like young me”, Jamaican eight-time Olympic champion Bolt told CNN, external: “At that young age, because I was there, you start getting put left and right and then you forget track and field.
“Hopefully he has the right set of people to guide him and keep him focused on track and field because the rest of the stuff will always be there.
“But if you mess up on track and field, then it all goes away.”
Gout is set to make his Diamond League debut in the 200m in Oslo on 10 June but has indicated he will skip the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow to focus on the World Under-20 Championships in Oregon in August.
