Adidas kingpin Spencer Nel, the man who spearheaded the juggernaut brand’s successful pursuit of Gout Gout‘s prized signature, was seated in the stands at Moscow’s 2013 world championships when Usain Bolt pretended to pop up an umbrella.
Nowadays, when Adidas’ long-time track and field marketing boss finds himself reminiscing on the Jamaican legend’s game of charades behind the blocks, an impromptu moment of theatre ahead of the 100-metre final, he thinks of Gout.
“It started raining right before the race was about to go and he pretended to open an umbrella,” Nel recalled in an interview with Wide World of Sports.
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“That is something you cannot teach an athlete. That’s just natural.
“And I see that in Gout.”
The schoolboy’s speed is frightening, and his personality priceless.
Both will be on show when he runs at the Australian championships in Perth this week, contesting the under-20 division in the 100m and the open field in his pet 200m event.
Usain Bolt mimes using an umbrella as rain tumbles ahead of the 100m final at the 2013 world athletics championships in Moscow. Getty
Cheery, charming, cool, funny, popular, measured, respectful, talkative, articulate, ambitious and, of course, precociously fast, Gout is marketing gold.
The moment he bursts over the finish line in the 100m or 200m at the national championships, another race will kick off — the race between a horde of photographers to find the best position possible, every one of them clicking their cameras furiously.
Of course, if Lachie Kennedy again triumphs in the long sprint, as he did in Melbourne late last month, snappers will be scrambling to capture the 21-year-old’s reaction.
But even if Gout is edged out, every one of the snappers will want a piece of him, and going by the scenes in Melbourne, the teen sensation will still lap up the limelight.
He’s left a striking impression on Sandy McGregor, so much so that the big-money businessman, the majority owner of champion Melbourne Cup racehorse Prince Of Penzance, threw money at him to lure him in for this year’s Stawell Gift.
“He’s electric. His celebrations are electric,” McGregor said.
“He is amazing theatre,” said John Steffensen, the champion Aussie sprinter.
“He is the new toy.”
Gout Gout gestures down the barrel of a camera after finishing second in the 200m at Melbourne’s Maurie Plant Meet. Getty
Nel has worked at Adidas for 28 years. He’s been the track and field marketing boss for 25 of those years. David Rudisha, Tyson Gay, Yohan Blake, Noah Lyles, Haile Gebrselassie, Allyson Felix and Australia’s much-loved Sally Pearson are among the crème de la crème of the talent he has signed.
He took two shots at signing Bolt seven years apart. Puma came up trumps on both occasions: in 2003 when he was 16, and in 2010.
Nel first met Gout in person at the world junior championships in Peru last August, although he’d been in negotiations with the teen prodigy and his camp for a while earlier.
A couple of months after the world juniors, when Gout was still 16, a multimillion-dollar contract was signed.
Then in December, still a few weeks shy of his 17th birthday, he clocked 20.04 seconds in a 200m in Brisbane. In doing so, he took down the iconic open Australian record set by Peter Norman at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and bettered the fastest time run by Bolt at the same age.
Nel has signed a small number of 16-year-olds in his 25 years in the job, but no one any younger.
Gout Gout is a crowd favourite. Getty
Asking Nel what makes Gout so attractive in the marketing world is a bit like asking someone why they’d want to drive a bright red, shiny Ferrari.
In saying that, this correspondent asked the Adidas heavy-hitter exactly that question and the answer he gave was fascinating.
“First and foremost, he is a prodigious talent. First and foremost, that is what you look for when you’re scouting for that next generation. The talent needs to be there, which it clearly is in abundance [with Gout],” Nel said.
“Every now and again there’s a prodigious talent that comes to the fore, so of course you’re interested and you try to get them to represent your brand.
“And then you inadvertently get to spend time with the athlete and you see how they interact with other individuals, [like] flight staff and people picking them up and hotel staff, and then you’re in the warm-up area and you see how an athlete interacts with other athletes and with his or her coach, and that gives you an inkling as to their personality.
“Gout is such a laidback individual and he’s very respectful. You observe and you get an impression of an athlete in different scenarios, and you think, ‘This is someone we want to be associated with as a brand’. Gout has certainly checked all of those boxes.
Spencer Nel (far right), Adidas’ track and field marketing boss, pictured with Olympic athletes (from left to right) David Rudisha, Michael Tinsley and Tony McQuay in 2014. Getty
“There was a tonne of media hype around him [at Melbourne’s Maurie Plant Meet], and I thought on that particular day there was probably the biggest media interest around him thus far. I thought he handled it really well. He remained calm. He was disappointed, but was still reacting to the crowd and giving kids the time for autographs and photographs, and he congratulated Kennedy.”
A day out from the Maurie Plant Meet, World Athletics posted a series of short clips on Instagram of Gout limbering up.
He had his headphones on and he was grooving to the beat, springing around on the Lakeside Stadium track in his Adidas kit, greyish-green in colour.
He was soon galloping around topless, his golden necklace bouncing on his chest.
And whenever he’d peer into the camera tracking his every move, he’d show off his big, pearly whites, or make the peace sign, or give a double thumbs up, or do nothing and still look impossibly cool.
Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo, the winner of 200m gold in Paris, whisked by before leaving for the day.
“See you tomorrow, man,” Gout quipped.
“Show time!”
Gout Gout, 16 at the time, erupts in celebration after breaking the open 200m Australian record set by Peter Norman at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Getty
Like many of the clips of Gout that have lit up social media, the World Athletics post reeled in tens of thousands of views and likes.
“He is very marketable,” Nel says, “and as a brand we are already working on a positioning for him as to where he fits in our portfolio.”
In January, in the two weeks Gout spent in Florida with Lyles, he featured in his first Adidas shoot.
And he made a guest appearance on Lyles’ Beyond the Records podcast. He told him he’d be coming for his crown at September’s Tokyo world championships, leaving the Olympic 100m champion both stunned and exhilarated.
“We’ve got a 17-year-old who’s already signed and now we’re starting this journey,” Nel said.
“Can you imagine in 10 years from now what kind of a journey we will have been able to capture as a brand having lived these moments with him?
“When somebody like this comes along, it’s special.”
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