Teen star’s history-making run
Australian sprinting sensation Gout Gout has run the world’s fastest 200m this year, drawing comparisons to world record holder Usain Bolt.
Gout, 17, won Queensland’s under-20 200-metre sprinting title on Sunday, in a world-leading 19.98 seconds.
It was the sixth-fastest time by an under-20 athlete in history, putting him in the same frame as world record holder Usain Bolt who ran 19.93 as a teenager.
It is also the fastest time for the distance run by anyone in the world, anywhere, in 2025 so far – and makes Gout the first Australian to break the 20-second barrier.
A 3.6-metre a second tailwind at the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre on Sunday prevented the time eclipsing his own national record (20.04). But it will be remembered as the second-fastest time in any conditions in Australia, behind only a 19.92 run by four-time Olympic silver medallist Frankie Fredericks of Namibia.
“I was happy and surprised but I feel a weight off my shoulders,” Gout said.
Gout’s potential world championships rivals, including occasional training partner Noah Lyles, are still emerging from indoor competition in Europe. But the young Queenslander now has two of the world’s top-10 under-20 200-metre marks of all time.
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Running so fast in March, ahead of the world championships in Tokyo in September, will send shockwaves through the sprinting ranks.
He will also have another chance at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne on March 29.
While still a Year 12 student at Ipswich Grammar School, Gout already has a sense of the electricity he is pumping through track and field.
The typically-sparsely populated grandstand at QSAC was packed with families wanting to see their home-grown idol.
And he delivered, finishing more than two seconds ahead of the competition in his final.
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“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 20,” he said.
“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.”
Nor does the young Aussie mind comparisons with the Jamaican superstar.
“It feels great because I’ve been at that stage, watching people like Usain Bolt, getting goosebumps,” Gout said.
“For me to give people goosebumps feels great.”
Bolt gave his own shoutout to the rising star late last year, after Gout broke Peter Norman’s 56-year-old national 200-metre record at the same stadium.
Asked to share his thoughts on Gout, Bolt offered just five words:
“He looks like young me,” he wrote on Instagram.
Earlier in the day, Gout clocked 20.05 in the heats with a legal tailwind.
Gout will also be one of the major drawcards at this year’s Stawell Gift. The famous 120-metre handicap is run on Easter Monday in western Victoria.
