‘A real rivalry’: Gout Gout beaten in 200m stunner
All eyes were on Gout Gout as the teen sensation hit the track, but he was beaten by a fellow Aussie young gun in a shock result.
Gout Gout has been beaten in the 200m in a stunning upset at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne on Saturday night.
All eyes were on the teen sensation as he faced some of his toughest competition yet in front of the first sold out crowd at a one-day Australian athletics meet since 2001.
But it was 21-year-old Lachlan Kennedy who spoiled the party, winning the Peter Norman Memorial 200m and beating Gout in a shock upset.
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The last man out on track in the final event of the night, Gout made a rockstar entrance wearing his red Adidas tracksuit as a brief pre-race delay added to the theatre.
But it was Kennedy who won in a personal best time of 20.26sec, ahead of Gout in 20.30sec.
Kennedy, who won the 100m earlier on Saturday, flew out of the blocks and was well ahead at the bend.
Gout came home like a rocket over the last 100m and nearly pipped Kennedy on the line but Gout left his run just a bit too late.
“Gout’s come with a flying run and Kennedy’s absolutely turned his personal best inside out,” Bruce McAvaney said in commentary on Seven.
Kennedy’s previous personal best was 20.93 and he now has the fourth fastest 200m time by an Australian.
Watch Gout Gout and Lachlan Kennedy’s run in the video above
“We don’t have one, we’ve got two stars in Australian sprinting.”
“Australian sprinting is on one right now, spearheaded by Gout,” Kennedy said post-race.
“I knew he was coming, my goal was just to hold him off. Five more metres and he would have had me.”
Gout becomes blockbuster must watch TV
McAvaney described it as a “coming out” party for Gout, who raced for the first time in front of a national TV audience.
TV ratings figures show the Maurie Plant Meet was the most watched program on free-to-air TV on Saturday, behind only the Channel 7 and Channel 9 news bulletins.
The athletics meet attracted an audience of 1.211 million viewers in a sign of Gout’s growing popularity, with his races quickly becoming appointment viewing.
Australia’s rapid improvement across the board in athletics is also a factor — at last weekend’s World Indoor Championships, Australia picked up seven medals in a stellar campaign.
“Some will be disappointed,” McAvaney said after Gout was pipped by Kennedy.
“I think we’re all thrilled in so many ways that Gout responded like he did and Australia bona fide have two huge stars going forward.
“We’ve seen the start of a real rivalry.”
In classy scenes, Kennedy and Gout embraced after the race and paid tribute to the packed crowd.
“Racing is great and getting in the races helps build my confidence and helps me think what I need to do. It is definitely great,” Gout said.
“The stadium got sold out so it is definitely great and being in this environment definitely helps to build my confidence for (September’s World Championships in) Tokyo,” Gout said.
Kennedy arguably has the title as Australia’s fastest man after he also picked up a silver medal in the 60m in the World Indoor Championships earlier this month.
Matt Shirvington said: “For Gout Gout this is not a failure in any way because he was always going to win tonight.
“He was either going to cross the finish line first or take a bit of the pressure valve off and that’s important for him going to nationals and qualifying for the world championships later in the year. You’ve got to lose to learn how to win.”
MEN’S 200M RESULTS
1. Lachlan Kennedy 20.26
2. Gout Gout 20.30
3. Calab Law 20.78
4. Kalinga Hewa Kumarage 20.89
5. Aidan Murphy 20.98
6. Yudai Nishi 21.00
7. Koki Ueyama 21.01
8. Christopher Ius 21.06
Gout Gout set for 200m
All eyes are on Gout Gout as he hits the track once again tonight.
It’s fitting he is racing in the Peter Norman Men’s 200m after breaking Norman’s longstanding national record with a time of 20.04sec late last year.
Gout is fresh off a blistering wind assisted run of 19.98sec at the Queensland Championships and he will bring the house down if he can dip under 20 seconds again.
The 17-year-old was presented with a certificate for breaking the Australian record as his coach Di Sheppard put him through his paces pre-race.
Letsile Tebogo won’t go up against Gout in the 200m but the Olympic champ was full of praise for the Aussie teen.
“He can be one of the best in the history books if he continues with the hunger that he has right now,” Tebogo said.
“He could go very far.”
Aussie teen Cam Myers blitzes 1500m
Cameron Myers has run a flawless race to win the John Landy 1500m in a slick time of 3:34.98.
The 18-year-old worked his way to the front of the field from the outset and took the lead with a lap to go.
Myers has been setting blistering middle distance times around the world and showed he is a force to be reckoned with — he even asked a pacer to move off the track to allow him to go faster during the race.
“It was fantastic running,” Bruce McAvaney said on Channel 7.
“It was courage at its very best. He laid it on the line and when they came at him he found a bit more.”
Tamsyn Manou added: “How is he only 18? The way that he runs against a quality, quality field.
“Een when he wanted to move the pacer out of the way he had a conversation with him and didn’t let it fluster him. It didn’t affect the back end of his race.
“There is so much to like about Cameron Myers. Here is where he is saying, ‘Get off the field. I want to go faster’. Amazing what he did here and he is holding his form.”
Jenneke makes return from injury
Michelle Jenneke has completed her first race since suffering a nasty hamstring injury, beginning her comeback in the 100m hurdles.
The popular hurdler, who earned the nickname ‘Jiggling Jenneke’ for her pre-race dance ritual behind the blocks, made her return on Saturday night.
Jenneke ran a time of 13.59sec at Melbourne’s Lakeside Stadium, which was good enough for sixth in the final.
She was half a second behind the winner, Japan’s Yumi Tanaka was victorious in 13.11 as Chisato Kiyoyama and Hitomi Nakajima rounded out an all-Japanese top three.
Australia’s Emily Britton (13.34sec) and Delta Amidzovski (13.46) were fourth and fifth.
“She needed to get one race under the belt and she will look to improve,” Tamsyn Manou said in commentary on Channel 7.
“She is often a slower starter to the season before she really hits her straps.
“I mean, the injury, rupturing your hamstring tendon is pretty much as bad as it gets in a hurdles, because you really need to snap that hamstring down in terms of pushing off the ground and then driving towards the next hurdle.
“So even with getting the race done, those nerves of making sure that the last race you were on the track, you’ve hit the deck at an Olympics and not exactly how you would want it to have gone after coming in with such great form for Michelle.
“But I think just getting that race done, that’s a positive. Sometimes you just have to change that goal that you’ve got for a race.
“It’s not about running under 13 seconds for her here tonight, it’s about finishing the race and finishing it uninjured.”
“I underwent surgery to reattach my hamstring less than a week after returning home from the Olympics,” Jenneke said ahead of her comeback.
“I was in a knee brace with crutches and unable to walk for the first six weeks and had about 5kg of muscle loss due to atrophy over that period.”
The 31-year-old stumbled over a hurdle in her heat at the Paris Olympics and fell onto the track in a heartbreaking end to her Olympic campaign.
Olympic champ hits the track
Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo came home well to finish second in the men’s 400m in a time of 45.26, behind compatriot Bayapo Ndori who won in 45.14 sec.
In the men’s 100m, Lachlan Kennedy won in a time of 10.17, ahead of Sebastian Sultana (10.29) and Rohan Browning (10.30).
Kennedy has a PB of 10.03 and won silver in the 60m at the World Indoor Championships and is aiming to break the elusive 10-second barrier.
In the women’s 3000m, Australia’s George Griffith ran well to finish second in a time of 8:35.10.
Ethiopia’s Fentaye Belayneh won in a PB of 8:34.30 and Senayet Getachew was 0.16sec behind Griffith in third.
Australian 19-year-old Claudia Hollingsworth won the 1500m in a time of 4:05.97.
Matt Denny won the men’s discus with a throw of 68.17 metres, only a metre shorter than his best throw in Paris last year.
He described the atmopshere as “a top three moment in my career”.
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