‘He is just 17’: Gout may not have run under 20s, but the athletics world is impressed anyway

Noah Lyles likes what he sees. He saw it up close when Gout Gout came to train with him in America early in the year. And he liked what he saw in Monaco on Saturday when the young Australian won again.

The world’s best believes the hype.

Monaco should have been where Gout broke 20 seconds. Hot, a fast track and racing the best under-23’s in a Diamond League meet side event, everything was poised for the youngster to break 20 for the first time.

Then he copped a stiff headwind.

Still, he ran 20.1 into a -1.9m per second headwind. It was 0.08 seconds outside his national record.

When Track & Field Gazette shared a video of the race on X, Lyles reposted it. Which is no big deal; the pair is now friends after training together. But Gout is also closing on being a rival.

When a follower replied that there was a lot of hype around Gout but “he hasn’t even gone under 20s yet”, the world athletics magazine put them in their box and the comment in perspective.

“He is just 17.”

Theoretically, Gout was racing the runners of his generation in the under-23 event, except at 17, he’s barely member of that group yet.

He was racing the wind more than the rest of the field, winning comfortably by 0.18s from Botswana’s Collen Kebinatshipi in 20.28s. Another 17-year-old, Naeem Jack, was third in 20.42s.

“Today was just getting really relaxed and focusing on what I have been doing in training and that is what I did and I got a win. It was into a negative headwind so that was pretty unlucky, but I was just practising what I do in training and trying to execute,” Gout said.

“The progression is obviously the under-23 race just getting my feet out there and obviously I am feeling very excited racing everyone out in the big league, Noah Lyles, Tebogo, just everyone out there is fun to compete with for sure so I just got out there and see what can do for sure.”

Gout had been poised to break 20s after a superb run in the Czech Republic only last month when he ran 20.02s to win the Ostrava Gold Spike meet.

Breaking 20s for the 200m is like breaking 10 for the 100m, it is the milestone of the great runners. Usain Bolt ran 19.93 as a 17-year-old. Gout does not turn 18 until December 29.

Gout is on school holidays from his year 12 studies for this bloc of racing in Europe. He will go home to Queensland after this to return to his studies before competing with the Australian team at the world championships in Tokyo in September, not long before his year 12 exams.

Later, Peter Bol smashed his Australian record by more than a second when he ran fourth in the 800m in a time of 1:42.55, beating the reigning world champion, Canada’s Marco Arop.

In a stunning field that included all eight finalists from last year’s Paris Olympics, Bol sat back for the first lap but down the home straight weaved through the field and seized an opening on the inside lane to push into fourth place behind winner Emmanuel Wanyonyi from Kenya in 1:41.41.

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