Teenage sensation Gout Gout ready to dive in at Diamond League deep end

Young sprinter is ready to take on the ‘big boys’ for the first time as he takes life in the spotlight in his stride

Life comes at you fast, especially when you are Gout Gout. In April, the 18-year-old prodigy became the fastest teenager over 200m in history. Then last month, he finally got his own bedroom for the first time, having bought his family a new six-bedroom house in Brisbane. Now, in Oslo on Wednesday, he is one of the headline acts in his first senior Diamond League race.

Excited? You bet he is. “It’s definitely a special event, knowing that it’s my first race against the big boys,” he says, with a smile that lights up a drab summer’s day. “It’s a different ballgame for sure.”