Teenager who is being billed as "the next Bolt" says he is "ready to rumble" in Tokyo.

He still shares a room with his older brother. He owns a Hyundai i30, not just because he likes the way it looks but because it has “good fuel economy”. He’s a straight A student with a keen interest in studying sports psychology when he goes to university.

Oh, and he’s also being billed as sprinting’s next great superstar. 

While they already know all about him in Australia, the world at large is about to get its first glimpse of Gout Gout on the senior global stage. The 17-year-old Queenslander has already taken great strides in his short career – breaking the Australian record that had stood since the 1968 Olympics and also winning the senior national title – but how he negotiates this next big step will make for fascinating viewing.

In the latest issue of AW magazine, Australia’s legendary Olympic sprinter Cathy Freeman described his style perfectly. “I had a little chuckle because he looked either like he was running downhill or that he’d been fired out of a cannon,” she said. “He just has so much raw talent and you can’t deny that. He’s exceptional. It’s captivating.”

Gout has had a recent growth spurt, and now stands at 183cm (six feet) tall, but he will be mixing it with the big boys now in Tokyo. At 8.43pm Japanese time on Wednesday, the Ipswich Grammar school student will step out into the truly elite arena as the heats of the men’s 200m get going and the attention intensifies. 

“I’m meant to be here,” says Gout. “[There are] obviously a few butterflies but, of course,  I've done the work.”

He is already famous in his home country, mobbed at every event in which he competes on Australian soil. “It's definitely crazy,” he added earlier this week at a Q+A event with his sponsors Adidas. “I've had grandparents come to me wanting photos, and people as little as two, three years old. I've [also] had a baby [handed towards me], and her mother wanted me to sign her forehead. It's definitely surreal.”

The attention has arrived thanks to his prodigious talent but it seems unlikely, given his support network, that he will be allowed to get ahead of himself, or let the hype seep in. Gout is coached by Di Sheppard, who has taken him from his early stages through to this level, while his parents, who are from South Sudan but migrated to Australia in 2006, have instilled “focus and motivation, integrity and confidence” in their son. 

There are other siblings – an older brother, older sister, plus three younger sisters and a younger brother “he says he wants to be faster than me” – to keep him in check. Friends, too.

“I've had the same mates since I was in grade seven, so they treat me the same,” he added. “Some of them don’t know how good I am sometimes.” That might change in the coming days. 

For Gout, success in Tokyo would be a PB. The articulate young man might possess incredible speed in his legs but he is learning to pace himself. 

“Balancing ambition and telling myself it takes time is definitely something important,” he said. “I struggled a bit during the start [of my career] but now I know that things don’t happen overnight. I’m only 17. These guys have 10, maybe 15, years on me, so [it’s a case of] telling myself that my time will come.”

As if to underline just how much time he has to play with, after this Japanese adventure Gout will return to school. There are exams to prepare for.  

His major sporting targets next year will be the World Under-20 Championships in Oregon, while there are also plans to race at a few events on the professional circuit but already there is a feeling that he is on a path set for a very special destination. 

When they migrated, Gout’s parents had the choice between Canada and Australia. Now, their son could well be the face of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics and even he admitted there is a sense of destiny around the quirk of fate that led to Queensland.

His destiny for this week will soon become clear, too. Asked, if his legs could talk, what they might say to him ahead of his world championships bow? Gout replied: "I think they'll be really good. It’ll be like F1. You know when the cars are really warming up the tyres? I think they'll be exactly like that. I think they'll be just ready to rumble. Ready to run.”

The world awaits.