Usain Bolt sent a warning to Gout Gout after the Australian sprint sensation broke one of his long-standing records earlier this year.
The 16-year-old rose to prominence earlier this year following a number of impressive victories at 100 and 200 metres, and he now holds a number of Australian under-16 records.
At the U20 World Championships in September, Gout ran the 200 metres in a time of 20.60 seconds – which was 0.01 seconds faster than Bolt‘s best time when he competed in the same race back in 2002.
When told about the comparisons between himself and Bolt by Australian media in August, Gout said: “It’s pretty cool because Usain Bolt is arguably the greatest athlete of all time and just being compared to him is a great feeling.
“Obviously I’m Gout Gout, so I’m trying to make a name for myself. If I can get to the level he was that would be a great achievement.”
Speaking on the High Performance Podcast with Jake Humphrey earlier this week, Bolt opened up on his younger days as a sprinter before he took the athletics world by storm – and indirectly gave Gout a significant piece of advice.
He said: “When I started out, I didn’t understand the concept of ‘being great’ because I was young.
“I was 15 when I won the world juniors, I was really young and I was really talented so I didn’t have to work as hard as it was just talent, as I was winning and winning.
“I remember when I got to the professional level, and I felt like it was just going to be easy.
“And I got to the stage where I would go to meets and I would lose. And I was like, ‘This is strange, this is new’. So it took me a while to understand.”
Featured Image Credit: Getty / High Performance Podcast
Topics: Usain Bolt, Athletics