The least excited person when Gout Gout cross the line for the first time in under 10 seconds was Gout Gout.
While everyone else gasped, then whooped, then sighed when the wind reading flashed up as being too strong to make his historic speed legal, Gout shrugged. It is what it is.
Gout Gout crosses the 100m finish line in under 10 seconds at the national athletics championships in Perth before the time was disallowed because of a tailwind.Credit: Getty Images
The reaction was as telling as the performance itself. Gout knows he will break 10 seconds for the 100m and do it sooner than later. Which in itself is a corollary of his career – he is doing everything sooner than later. Certainly sooner than any other Australian.
But this is the thing about Gout and his mindset: breaking 10 is just what you do because you need to be able to do it. It is not the destination, it is just a signpost on the journey.
He expects to be among the best in the world. And to be among the best in the world – even if you are only a kid – you need to regularly break 10, so don’t get unduly excited when you do it.
The fact that Patrick Johnson among Australian men is the only one to have ever breached the 10-second mark legally, and Rohan Browning the only other Australian to do it with the wind at his back, like Gout, gives the time a rarity that enhances it’s special significance for Australian runners.
Breaking 10 gives sprinters credibility among athletes around the world. But of itself it is just a number on the path.
“It doesn’t feel very special because this is the stuff you have to do to get to the next level, sub-10 was inevitable, it happened today, so I’m hoping it can happen again,” he said after the heat.
Unlike in the heat when he slowed off with 30 metres to go, Gout kept powering to the line in the final two hours later. He had enough time to look up at the board and see the clock stopped at 9.99s and he celebrated.
He is a showman and a sprinter, well showboy.
It provided a little window to his mindset; as much as he wanted to play down the importance of the time, it still holds that special significance for him. You can’t completely suppress boyish enthusiasm.
“I saw the clock, I saw another sub-10. I was happy; national champion,” Gout said.
“It definitely improves my confidence levels, sub-10 is what every sprinter hopes for, and to get it this early in the season is definitely great. It feels pretty good. I mean, they are the things you hope for [to run sub-10 seconds],” Gout added after the final.
“I said I’ll get sub-10 and I have done it now, so I have just got to keep doing it.”
Gout is doing this having only just turned 17. When Johnson and Browning did it they were physically developed and in their 20s.
Gout is also doing this in his less preferred event. He is, firstly, a 200m runner.
So what does the fact he has got himself down the track, even with a marginally illegal wind at his back mean?
Everything and nothing. Or nothing and everything.
It means that the 9.99s does not stand as a personal best. But it does reinforce the trajectory he is on. When his body develops, he should be a genuine contender in both sprints among any company.
More immediately it says if he gets the right start this weekend, he can break his own 200m record set in December at the national all-schools championships.
That was an accomplishment that sounds more absurd and hilarious the more you say it and think about it. Gout was at a schoolboy’s meet when he broke the men’s record that had stood for 57 years. A record set at altitude in Mexico at the Olympics in one of the most storied athletics events – given the civil rights history around that race and the protest on the podium – and it was broken by a kid who was 16 at the time at a little track in Brisbane’s outer suburbs. Absurd.
What Gout has done since, in Melbourne a fortnight ago, and in Perth on Thursday enhances his bona fides as an athlete. If there were doubts his efforts were more hyperbole than performance he ended them. He’s 17!
On Sunday in the 200m, he could quite reasonably break 20 seconds for the 200m.
Gout’s 17 and already the pin-up boy of Australian athletics. Credit: Getty Images
He potentially races Lachlan Kennedy in that 200m, the man (he’s only 21) who shaded him in the 200m at the Maurie Plant Meet a fortnight ago.
Kennedy will run the open 100m on Friday night (Gout ran his sub-10 in the under-20 race), and he is also a strong chance of breaking 10s. Hopefully, the wind is kind.
At this stage, he is unsure if he will follow-up and run the 200m final. At worst, he will run the heat and deliver the race everyone now wants to see.
This is the other what point about what Gout’s run means. His sport has a new king, OK princeling.
Australian Athletics has not had someone like Gout since Catherine Freeman. And, no, he hasn’t accomplished anything akin to Catherine yet, but the interest in him far exceeds that of any athlete of the past two decades.
Channel Seven now wants to broadcast his races live – with Bruce there live calling it. This is no benevolent gesture for the bigger broadcasting picture, they are doing that because the sport demands that level of attention.
“Just getting that sub-10 definitely boosts that confidence especially for my main event, the 200m. Hopefully I will go faster, but I guess we will find out on Sunday.
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