‘He’s a Sponge’ - Noah Lyles on How He is Transforming Gout Gout into a World Class Sprinter

Olympics 100m champion Noah Lyles has opened up about his time with Australian wonderkid Gout Gout who he trained alongside in recent weeks.

Lyles and Gout Gout trained together in May, the latest of a series of working relationships the two have had, as the teenage sprinter continues his development.

Gout Gout, seen as the next big thing in sprints, has earned comparisons with Jamaican legend Usain Bolt, due to his knack for breaking junior world records both in 100m and 200m.

The 18-year-old broke the under-20 world record in the 200m at the Australian Athletics Championships, when he clocked 19.67, an achievement that has since been ratified.

He is set to go toe-to-toe with Lyles in the 150m race at the Ostrava Golden Spike in Czechia on June 16 with both sprinters looking to break Kishane Thompson’s world record of 14.92 seconds.

"We were kind of going back and forth between a 300m and a 150m,” Lyles told Olympics about his recent conversations with Gout Gout. “When I heard what the world record was, I was like, oh yeah, we're going with that one. We can knock that off real quick.”

Lyles then weighed in on how he has been open to guiding the young sprinter even as he dismissed accusations that he does not help others in the sport.

“(Young athletes) come into the sport, they're eager, they're excited. Just try and give as much knowledge as you can because you don't want them to have to go through what you went through in terms of the mistakes. You want them to have like the best opportunities,” he added.

“And a lot of people think, like I try to safeguard the sport. Well, people might assume that I safeguard the sport, but everybody who knows me inside the sport knows that I'm an open book.

“I usually try to give as much help and guidance as possible. People usually call me or Junelle even when they are trying to get information on situations. And we try to get our very honest answers to give us as much as possible help.”

The 28-year-old laid bare the specific area of Gout Gout’s game that he has been keen to help him improve and whose results are now visible.

“So he came to Pilates with me because I started noticing that there were some ways that his body was reacting to things,” Lyles further stated.

“And I'm like, ooh, that could be fixed in Pilates. I couldn't tell him how to get in the correct form before he knew how to activate certain parts of his muscles so I asked him, ‘Do you want to come Pilates?’ And he was like, yeah, I'll come to Pilates.

“Those things that I wanted him to feel, he started feeling and he ended up cramping out but that was because he wasn't using the correct muscle to get into the right position. So then the teacher comes over and puts him in the right position, and now all of a sudden he knows what to do,” added Lyles, who is thrilled that the Australian is also eager to learn.

“So now I'm saying, ‘OK, you know that feeling that you felt yesterday? Now do that on the track. And then he's realising that something he was doing that was hard, is now easier,” said the eight-time world champion.

“He's a sponge. He's absorbing information. He's a really good teen, he is very well-taught.”