Gout Gout runs wind-assisted 19.98 200m
Gout Gout has done it again. The comparisons to Usain Bolt were already there, now, a record-breaking 200m effort won’t put those to rest. Even if the Queensland teenager had some help.
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Teenage sprint sensation Gout Gout has broken the magical 20-second 200m barrier, matching the feats of the great Usain Bolt.
The Queensland schoolboy clocked an illegal wind-assisted 19.98sec (+3.6 mps) at the state championships in Brisbane to put his name up alongside the world’s fastest man in history.
Bolt ran 19.93sec as a 17-year-old with Gout, who turned 17 in December, now joining him in that rarified air and even though the time won;t be officially recognised, it’s acknowledged as a significant breakthrough.
America’s Erriyon Knighton became the fastest 17-year-old in history when he ran 19.84sec at the US Olympic trials in 2021.
Gout said he went through the full spectrum of emotions throughout the course of the race.
“I had an unsteady start, and to be honest, after that I didn’t really feel like running,” he said.
“But it felt pretty good. I came off the bend and I just kept sending it. I felt the wind behind me, so I was like, let me just use it. And then I saw the clock, and when it got rounded down (to a sub-20 time), I just couldn’t be happier.
“I felt literally free. I had 80-metres left to go, and I thought, let’s send it, and only from then did I believe I had a chance of going sub.
“Seeing the clock, I was really happy and surprised in a way, but it just felt like a weight off my shoulders. Now that I’ve done it, I’ve just got to do that more consistently.”
Gout became just the seventh U/20 athlete to go under the 20-second mark with less than 140 athletes in history to have done it under any condition.
“It feels great because I’ve been at that stage, watching Usain Bolt on the news and just getting goosebumps. Giving people goosebumps, it definitely feels great and I wish I can continue giving people more goosebumps that’s for sure,” he said.
“In my heat, there was no crowd, so when I came out (for the final) from warming up, I looked up behind me and there was this huge crowd. It just helps me run faster, for sure.”
The beauty about Gout’s performance is it has come so early in the season with the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne on March 29 his next outing over the 200m.
He put the writing on the wall in his heat earlier in the day where he went within 0.01sec of his Australian 200m record.
Running in the U//20 heats the teenager clocked the second fastest 200m time in Australian history, again going under the former long-time record set by the great Peter Norman.
Gout clocked 20.05sec on the same track where he ran the national record of 20.04sec back in December. It is the fastest time in the world this year.
Norman ran 20.06sec in winning the silver medal at the 1968 Mexico Olympics.
Gout’s sub-20 statement performance sends a message to the rest of the world that he will be a player at the world championships in Tokyo in September which will be his first major competition against the senior sprinters.
On Saturday Gout was hampered by a strong headwind as he attempted to break 10 seconds for the 100m, instead cruising to another state title in 10.38sec.
He is in a race to become the second Australian to go sub-10 with the depth of sprinting in Australia the best it has ever been.
Olympian Rohan Browning showed he shouldn’t be forgotten with an impressive season-opener of 10.12sec at the Queensland state titles.
At the Sydney Track Classic on Saturday night the record books were re-written in the men’s 4x100m relay with a new national record of 37.87sec - obliterating the former mark of 38.12sec.
The team of Lachlan Kennedy, Joshua Azzopardi, Christopher Ius and Calab Law were brilliant in taking down the previous record which was set in the heats of the Paris Olympics.
Later Azzopardi took out the individual 100m, clocking 10.06sec with an illegal tail wind (+2.4 mps) to defeat reigning Australian champion Sebastian Sultana (10.08sec).
Other notable performances in Sydney included three-time Olympian Peter Bol winding back the clock with a brilliant victory in the 800m in 1min44.86sec while in the women’s 800m 19-year-old Claudia Hollingsworth made an impressive return clocking 1:59.30sec.
GOUT GOUT MISSES 10-SECOND BARRIER; AZZOPARDI LEADS PURSUIT
Scott Gullan and Brent Read
A frustrating headwind has denied Gout Gout a chance to make more history.
The teenage sprint sensation had his eye on becoming the second Australian to run under 10 seconds for the 100m at the Queensland state championships but the weather gods weren’t on his side.
Gout looked sensational in his heat, jogging over the final stages and pointing to the stands as ran 10.39sec which had the crowd excited about what may have been ahead 90 minutes later in the U/20 final.
But unfortunately the fickle Brisbane weather wasn’t playing ball with a headwind of -1.4 mps greeting Gout in the final which made it impossible to produce a career best performance.
Instead the 17-year-old easily took the title in 10.38sec. He will be hoping for better conditions on Sunday when he competes in the U/20 200m.
It was on the same track back in December when Gout announced himself to the world with two stunning performances.
At the Australian All-Schools Championships he ran an illegal wind-assisted 10.04sec in the heats before clocking a personal best (and legal wind reading) 10.17sec in the final.
A day later he recorded a personal best of 20.04 seconds over 200 metres, breaking Peter Norman’s 56-year-old national record which had stood since the 1968 Mexico Olympics.
Gout has some company in the race to be the next Australian to go sub-10sec, joining Patrick Johnson who ran 9.93sec in Japan in 2003.
Leading the way this season is fellow Queenslander 21-year-old Lachlan Kennedy who recorded an eye-catching 10.03 seconds at the Perth Track Classic earlier this month.
Tokyo Olympic 100m semi-finalist Rohan Browning, reigning national champion Sebastian Sultana, Joshua Azzopardi and Jacob Despard all have faster times over the distance than Gout.
But Gout, who is still at high school, is predicted to go past them all this season.
He won’t clash with them at next month’s Australian championships, preferring to do the U/20 100m with his main focus being the senior 200m title. He will also concentrate on the 200m at the Maurie Plant meet in Melbourne on March 29.
The Stawell Gift on Easter Monday looms as the first time Australia’s fastest men will get a chance to go head-to-head with Gout.
AZZOPARDI EYES MAGICAL BARRIER
Josh Azzopardi can’t guarantee he will break the 10-second barrier on Saturday night at the Sydney Track Classic - but he knows it is coming as a cracking field of Australian sprinters push each other to new heights.
Teenage sensation Gout Gout is one of the hottest properties in Australian sport right now. Lachie Kennedy recently broke the national and Oceania records in the 60m and ran 10.03s in Perth.
Azzopardi ran in Perth as well, flying home in a new personal best of 10.09s. Australia’s sprinters are enjoying a purple patch and Azzopardi insists they it is only a matter of time before one or all enter sprinting’s most rarefied air.
“We always talk about it because there is definitely massive belief among the group that we can beat those times now,” Azzopardi said.
READ MORE: Gout, Browning, Azzopardi and Kennedy in race to break historic 10-second 100m mark
“So I think it’s only a matter of time before one of us (breaks 10s). It’s definitely something that me and my coach have spoken about.
“At the start of the season - post-Olympics - we were kind of saying that the next step that we want to take is to run under 10 seconds.
“We’ve got Lachie chasing it as well, we’ve got Seb (Sultana) chasing it, we’ve got Gout chasing it. I can definitely see one of us doing it this year and I’m going to try make myself be the first one to do it.
“So we’ll see how that goes.”
Azzopardi and Sebastian Sultana will headline the field in the men’s 100m at the Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre on Saturday night, Azzopardi’s final event before heading to China to compete in the 60m at the world indoor championships.
Less than 24 hours later all eyes will turn to Brisbane where teen star Gout will headline the Queensland track championships and the 100m final on Sunday afternoon.
These lead up races are all building towards the national titles in Perth next month, where they will all try to push each other into the sub 10s territory.
A veteran of the Paris Olympics, where he competed in the 10m and the 4 x 100m relay, Azzopardi’s story could have taken a different turn six years ago when he was approached by Rugby Australia’s sevens program.
They came armed with footage of American sevens player Carlin Isles, a former track star who made the transition and became a try-scoring machine.
Azzopardi thought about it and then thought about competing in the 100m at the Olympics.
“I just came out of world juniors in 2018 and there was just something about making the Olympics for the 100m that really caught my eye,” Azzopardi said.
“So I turned that down back in 2019. I hadn’t really solidified myself as a top athlete, but as a junior I was doing pretty well under not much training.
“So I was just wondering where I could take it if I fully committed to my training, to my diet. It just took off from there.”
Azzopardi got his Olympics wish in Paris and now he and his relay teammates have loftier goals. Breaking records and winning medals is on their agenda.
“We’re all mates and stuff and hang out at relay camps together, but then when it comes to an individual standpoint, you’re obviously out there to beat each other,” Azzopardi said.
“So you’ve got to find the balance of being mates and then being competitors at the same time. But once we’re on a relay kind of camp and team, then we’re all chasing that one goal to break 38s or break the national record.
“I think the boys have figured out how to juggle that. It’s been good at the moment.”
There’s also that 10-second barrier.
“So it comes down to conditions as well and how lucky you are with the weather,” Azzopardi said.
“Obviously having a tailwind would be ideal, a nice hot day and then you throw in the fact that you might be able to do it at a major (event) because you’re more hyped up and more motivated.
“Half of the time it’s just about getting your body right and your body not carrying any niggles, which is really rare in a sport like this.
“The speed that we’re traveling, .10s is a metre, right? So you have to try to find a metre within a race. That’s probably one of the toughest things in the sport - once you start running very quick.
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