Australian sprinter Gout Gout thought he was in trouble when his school’s “cranky” track coach called him over for a chat six years ago.
But track coach Di Sheppard had no intention of scolding Gout, who she’d spotted running around with friends. Sheppard thought Gout was a star in the making and, in the years since, she’s been proven correct. Gout, now 18, has a slew of trophies, medals and both national and world records to his name.
“It’s a pretty crazy dynamic when you think about it. The old White lady and a young Black kid, you know? It’s a crazy dynamic,” Gout said. “But turns out it works perfectly, and [I] wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The Sheppard-Gout dynamic
Gout, the son of South Sudanese immigrants and one of seven kids in the family, was a student at Ipswich Grammar School in Queensland, Australia, when he met Sheppard, who had no formal track background when she started working at the school.
“I looked at him and just went, ‘Oh my God.’ Something just gut punchy. It was just like, ‘This kid’s the real deal,'” Sheppard, now a grandmother in her 60s, said.
She told the school’s headmaster she’d make Gout a star.
“He thought I was mucking around,” Sheppard said.
But the coach never mucks around. She’s stayed with Gout in the years since and is the only coach he’s ever had.
“Our personalities kinda filter off each other,” Gout said. “We’re all on the same level, and we’re all learning. So it’s a great relationship.”
As Gout’s star has risen, attention has come with it.
“I don’t like the attention. It’s not my cup of tea. Gout handles it totally different to me. But good cop, bad cop,” Sheppard said.
Predictably, brands have come calling. An Adidas deal reportedly pays Gout a base of more than $4 million over eight years. Sheppard wasn’t worried the money would change her dynamic with Gout.
“I think the only time we’ll have trouble is if it’s a girl that I don’t like,” she said.
What makes Gout so fast
Sheppard has coached Gout as he’s grown and gone through puberty. When she met Gout, he walked high on his toes. The coach spent six months working on the way Gout walked, wanting to get his heel down.
“He’s a kid. And he’s got so much more physical development,” Sheppard said. “He only really hit puberty in the last 12 to 18 months, basically.”
Gout’s physique is unique for someone known for the 200-meter sprint; it’s more befitting a runner of longer distances. He’s 6 feet tall and weighs less than 150 pounds.
The teen can struggle getting off the starting blocks, but he excels at mid-race speed endurance, with an ability to sustain top speed of roughly 25 mph.
Sheppard worries about possible injury or burnout as Gout grows. Sprinters typically don’t hit peak performance until their mid-20s.
“If I tried to make him super quick now I’d break him,” she said.
Dylan Hicks, a movement scientist at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, recently published a paper on sprinting. He says that Gout excels at releasing the explosive energy stored in his Achilles tendons.
“And he creates the height. So we see him sort of bouncing his way down the track and using less steps than everybody else,” Hicks said.
Making his mark on the track
During the Australian secondary school championships in December 2024, Gout — then 16 — turned in a time of 20.04 seconds in the 200-meter dash, clocking the fastest time in Australian history. His blistering pace that day saw him overtake a record set by another runner in — get this — the 1968 Olympics.
The teen’s time also broke the world age-group record set in 2003 by Usain Boltthe Jamaican eight-time Olympic gold medalist, who’s considered the sport’s greatest of all time.
“My first couple steps I had a good start. And if I have a good start, you know, it’s kind of over. Because my top-end speed is great. And once I get into top-end speed, I’m flying,” Gout said.
Last fall, at 17, Gout finished fourth in his semi-final heat at the Track World Championships in Tokyo. But then, just last month, Gout became the fastest teenager ever in the 200m at a race in Sydney.
He won with a 19.67 in the 200-meter sprint — a time that would have won him a bronze at the 2024 Olympics, where the runners are typically several years older than Gout.
Racing toward the Olympics
The sprinter could bolt to a medal when the 2028 Olympics arrive in Los Angeles. Four years after that, Gout will be 24 — the age when sprinters tend to really hit their stride — when the Summer Games come to his home city of Brisbane, Australia.
“It’s crazy to think about how you want to run as fast as possible but you don’t want to overload too much when you’re a teenager because then that messes up the rest of your career,” Gout said. “Like, you know, you got all the time in the world.”
Despite the spotlight, Gout finished his studies at Ipswich Grammar School, where he graduated in December with Straight A’s.
And, for now, he continues to train with local kids in his hometown — not exactly a world class stable.
But Gout and Sheppard believe that, right now, it’s the best environment as the sprinter works toward future Olympics.
“This is what I was pretty much put onto this Earth to do, and that’s what I’m doing,” Gout said.