His remarkable 200m record in Sydney brought out the sceptics, but Gout Gout is poised to provide his response on the track in Brisbane this weekend – and the 18-year-old has another magical time barrier in his sights.
Gout stopped the clock at 19.67 seconds in his sizzling run to win the Australian 200m title and lower his own national record by a whopping 0.35 seconds. It was faster than Usain Bolt ran at the same age.
The run was legal, with a 1.7m/s tailwind, but questions about the legitimacy of the result quickly swirled given the man who finished second, Aidan Murphy, also lowered his personal best by a fair chunk to run 19.88, and become only the second Australian to break 20 seconds. In all, seven of the 200m finalists ran personal-best times.
The sceptics were mostly US-based, and included trolling influencers looking to harvest strong traffic attached to Gout and Lachlan Kennedy, but also some legitimate athletics writers and analysts. Former Olympic 100m gold medallist and drug cheat Justin Gatlin later weighed in, saying doubts would remain about Gout until he performed outside Australia.
Athletics Australia and Gout’s camp this week declined to respond to any of the criticism, not wanting to supply further oxygen.
But Gout has the chance to respond on the tartan in the coming days, with the teenager racing at the Australian Junior Championships in Brisbane.
Gout, who will race in the World Under 20 Championships instead of the Commonwealth Games in July, is entered in the under-20s 100m and his agent, James Templeton, believes there is a strong chance the youngster can break a second major time barrier in the same week.
After Kennedy became the first Australian to run under 10 seconds for the 100m (twice), Gout will be aiming to join him – and national record holder Patrick Johnson – in the exclusive sub-10s club.
“He’s got three races – he’s got the heats tomorrow [Friday] afternoon and he’s got the semi-final and the final,” Templeton said. “You can never predict anything because you need good conditions, no headwinds and so on.
“But put it this way, his first run of the season was 10.0, and it’s hard for me to believe he’s not in better shape now.”
Gout – who ran 9.9s twice last year with illegal tailwinds – ran a personal best 10.0s in his first 100m of the year in February, at the same venue he will race at on Friday, the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre.
“He’s got this huge confidence out of last week, and he’s conscious of what Lachie’s run,” Templeton said. “He has a great rivalry with Lachie, and Lachie would be disappointed in him if he wasn’t thinking, ‘I’m coming after you’.”
Gout and records go hand in hand these days, but they’ll only get harder and harder to break. Like Kennedy, Templeton said Gout had an eye on Johnson’s national record of 9.93s, and the world junior 100m record of 9.91s, set by reigning Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo in 2022.
“We don’t talk about those things much, but he’s conscious of them – and he’s a hungry young bloke,” Templeton said.
Gout will also answer the critics in June and July, after signing up to race Tebogo in two Diamond League meetings in Oslo and Oregon.
Gout’s time of 19.67s is already on World Athletics’ website as an under-20s record, but with an asterisk denoting it is yet to be ratified. That process can take up to a year, with a checklist that includes doping controls, verification of timing systems and wind gauge accuracy.
As far as Gout’s record goes, it is all expected to be a formality, with the national championships using state-of-the-art equipment and all officials at the event being accredited with the global body.
The new $3 million Rekortan track with a gel layer at Sydney Olympic Park, laid during summer, also had to be officially signed off as meeting World Athletics standards when it was completed in March.
According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the unusual spate of PBs in the men’s 200m was likely due to a stacking of beneficial factors, including favourable wind conditions, the new track and athletes peaking for the national titles.
The wind was gusty on Sunday at the Sydney Olympic Park athletics centre at Homebush, a bowl notorious for rapidly changing wind directions and speeds. Murphy said this week the wind even felt in his face at the start of the 200m, but many believe athletes likely had some curling tailwind as they ran around the bend.
The tailwind then measured in the straight was just under the legal limit of +1.7m/s, as opposed to the women’s 200m final held just before, which had a +2.0m/s reading. Insiders say new tracks are often advantageous, and state junior titles also delivered a smattering of PBs last month. But other events at the new Sydney track were also run in slower times than last year’s nationals in Perth, including Peter Bol being two seconds slower in the 800m.
Iain Payten is a senior sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.