British broadsheets, German TV, French radio: He’s just a teen, but Gout is taking the world by storm in Tokyo

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At the last world athletics championships in Budapest two years ago, there were three Australians with media accreditation. It had been the same at every worlds for two decades; just three people.

This year in Tokyo, there are 20 Australian journalists, photographers and broadcasters accredited and in the stadium covering the event. The Australian allocation was exhausted and five more photographers and writers were refused accreditation. This year there are two broadcasters into Australia: Nine and SBS. That has never happened before.

The difference? A teenage schoolboy.

Teen sensation Gout Gout is taking Tokyo by storm – and he hasn’t even raced yet.

Sprint sensation Gout Gout is not just an Australian fascination; the world is watching and listening.

Gout, 17, did basically no media before he flew out to Tokyo for the championships, though there was a photo shoot for GQ. With no hint of irony, the gentleman’s magazine profiled a teenage boy. Quite the gent.

While the rest of the Australian team did a handful of individual preview interviews for Tokyo, Gout had his own media event. Organised by his sponsor Adidas in the most salubrious area of Tokyo, it was covered by about 50 media. The British broadsheets, German TV, Japanese TV and newspapers, radio from France and, of course, Australia.

In the space of a year Gout has catapulted into being the biggest athlete Australia has had since Cathy Freeman. He has a bigger profile already than Sally Pearson, and he is yet to win a major medal or even race at major championships. He is a kid doing adult things.

“I’m in the [athletes’] hotel and walking to dinner and I’m seeing these athletes I’ve seen on the TV my whole life.” Gout said. “Like, this is crazy just thinking about it.

“I’m just casually walking by them, sitting next to them. It’s crazy. But my thinking about it is I kind of deserve this place, and I remember I’m kind of meant to be here for sure.”

Gout has also literally become bigger in the past 12 months. He has grown three centimetres and now stands 183 centimetres, or six feet, tall. He has added muscle and size to his frame from gym sessions between English, psychology, maths and history classes.

Fame has been rapid and weird. Grandparents of mates now ask him for selfies. A woman asked him to sign a baby’s head. A group of young kids at his school come past to shake his hand at lunchtime every day. Every. Day.

Gout celebrates winning the men’s 200m at the Ostrava Golden Spike athletics meet in the Czech Republic in June.

“That’s pretty crazy. I think it’s definitely surreal, like this is stuff as a kid growing up you never expected to it to be you?” Gout said.

He has long been likened to Jamaican sprint king Usain Bolt, not only for his achievements in breaking Bolt’s world junior records, but the upright, long-striding gait. He is yet to meet Bolt, but Bolt knows who he is and is being asked about him at every opportunity by the world’s media. On Friday, Bolt cautioned Gout about his own difficulties transitioning from precocious junior to running against adults and to hasten slowly.

Gout only had to look at the size of the men on the blocks for the 100m final on Sunday night to appreciate the difference of 10 years’ of training and racing. Gout took the advice, but finds it hard to temper his own expectations.

“It definitely feels great because Usain Bolt is literally the greatest track athlete we have ever seen and arguably the greatest athlete we’ve seen. So it’s definitely great having someone of that calibre know me and just know I’m on that path of greatness as well,” he said.

“Definitely it’s just balancing that ambition and telling myself it takes time.

“I think I struggled a bit during the start and a couple of years ago, but now I know that things don’t happen overnight, like, I’m only 17. These guys have 10, maybe 15 years on me. So definitely it’s telling myself that time will come.”

That said, here Gout measures success by running a personal best. If he does that, he will break 20 seconds for the 200m. That is the milestone he most wants. If he does that in the heat, he will make the semi-final. At 17! This is not normal.

“Obviously there’s that sub-20 barrier I’m aiming for. Obviously, when I get that, I’ll break the [national] record as well. I’m just aiming to run faster and just going out there, running really, really fast, and just having fun with it,” he said.

To compete in Tokyo at his first senior major championship, Gout has taken a week off his year 12 studies. He plans to study at university next year but might take a year off. Another balance for him is dealing with the idea of his sporting life being so mapped out that he’s not sure where university and his plans for a psychology degree fit in.

Suffice to say, he is more financially secure than not only any other 17-year-old but any other Australian athlete. This year he signed a deal with adidas for $6 million to take him through until the 2032 Olympics.

“‘JT’ [his manager James Templeton] told me how much they were willing to pay to get me on their side. It was crazy. The numbers kept getting higher and I realised how much these companies think I am worth,” he told GQ in that interview.

That he was doing a stylised studio photoshoot wearing designer labels – no adidas kit in sight – was a sign of the celebrity of Australia’s most marketable athlete.

The athlete has remained bemused by his celebrity.

“That sponsorship really helps you get to the next level because obviously you need the money to travel and train. Especially since I’m at school, so I don’t need to go and find a job at Maccas or whatever to put fuel in my car. It definitely helps a lot. Long term I’d like to set myself up and set my family up,” he told GQ.

Templeton has hired London sports marketing firm IPSEM Squared to manage the many commercial approaches and best leverage Gout’s commercial opportunities as one of the most sought-after world athletes. When Gout went to Europe in the recent school holidays and competed at his first Diamond League meeting, adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden wanted to meet the company’s new athlete personally. The company also tailored shoe spikes for him.

So far, it is just the big adidas deal he has signed, but that will only be the first. As evidenced by his first exposure to the world media in Tokyo, Gout has quickly developed global reach because of his age and the Bolt comparisons. And that is before he has competed; just wait if and when he does something significant on the track. He can expect a watch deal, an aftershave, a sports drink company, maybe a telecom or phone company, perhaps a bank or a fashion label all to make inquiries.

He has to date remained bemused by the celebrity and is enjoying the sudden strangeness of it.

He is a Christian and is kept grounded by his parents, who migrated from South Sudan, and his large family. He has six brothers and sisters, still shares a bedroom with his older brother, and his youngest brother, in grade 4, tells him constantly he is faster than him. When he bought a car recently with this newfound wealth he went for a Hyundai. It was a modest choice.

It isn’t only on the track he appears older than his years. He speaks so maturely and confidently you have to remind yourself he is a kid. He likes gaming, but doesn’t do it as much as he used to. When he returns to Australia from Tokyo he goes back to school holidays, so he will go away with mates … to the Gold Coast. He lives in Ipswich, an hour away. His favourite food? Pizza, no wait, a burger. Drink? Peach iced tea. Thing that irritates him most? He’s stumped.

Earlier this year he went to the US to train with Noah Lyles, the two-time Olympic champion and six-time world champion, also an adidas athlete. He arrived and felt starstruck for a day before it all felt sort of normal, which is how he is starting to feel here in Tokyo.

“Noah was just telling me that I deserve to be here; I’m in the same boat as everyone else. Try not to put too much pressure on myself but putting enough pressure where I can go out there and just run very fast and just have a bit of fun with it,” he said.

“Obviously there’s a few butterflies, but I’ve done the work to be going out there and executing the race plan, executing the job. So going out there, have a little bit of fun and just trying to focus the best I can and just go out there, enjoy my first experience.

“I want a PB regardless of where I come [in the race], [that] is definitely a big success. And hopefully, if I can make it to the semi that’s even greater. Then if I make it into the final, that’s a big success. So PB is definitely a big goal for me, and then just going through the round to be big step after big step.

“I definitely just want to be someone [when his career is over] that people can look at and say he was like, he was good. He was that guy; he was able to compete [for] global medals.

“Just being able to be that, someone who started off as a nobody and became something really, really good. I think would be a very, very big success.”

For now he feels like his legs are talking to him, telling him he’ll be OK.

“I think they’ll be [saying], ‘ready to go’, they’ll be like in F1 how the cars are moving, [weaving side to side] warming up the tyres. I think they’ll be exactly like that. I think they’ll be just ready to rumble. I think that’s what they’ll say.”

Gout Gout races the heat of the 200m at 9.15pm Wednesday. The semi-finals are on Thursday 10.02pm and the final is Friday at 11.06pm.