{"id":603686,"date":"2026-04-13T08:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603686\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T08:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:06:08","slug":"is-gout-gout-faster-than-usain-bolt-australian-sprinter-sets-sights-on-jamaican-greats-200m-record-gout-gout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603686\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Gout Gout faster than Usain Bolt? Australian sprinter sets sights on Jamaican great\u2019s 200m record | Gout Gout"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having cracked the 20-second barrier with a sizzling run over 200m \u2013 and in the process fulled comparisons with the great Usain Bolt \u2013 the question now is, how fast can Gout Gout<\/a> go?<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long\u2019s a piece of string?\u201d said Gout\u2019s coach and mentor, Di Sheppard, after he clocked 19.67sec at the Australian championships<\/a> in Sydney on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The time smashed his own national record of 20.02sec and was good enough for him to become the first Australian to record a legal time under the magical 20-second barrier.<\/p>\n

Aidan Murphy quickly became the second, just a step behind with another supremely impressive run in the same race, but Gout grabbed the headlines as he bettered Bolt\u2019s best when the Jamaican sprint great was the same age.<\/p>\n

The only man under the age of 20 to have run quicker over 200m is Erriyon Knighton, though the now-banned American\u2019s time in 2022 was unratified.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Comparisons with the Jamaican great are perhaps unhelpful at this nascent stage of Gout\u2019s career, but given his clear upwards trajectory, the hope in his camp is that Bolt\u2019s longstanding open record of 19.19sec, set in 2009, will be the next to fall.<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old\u2019s manager, James Templeton, said in the immediate aftermath of Sunday\u2019s race that he was thrilled but not shocked by the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year he ran 19.84 in the nationals, with a marginal wind, so we always felt like that was his time last year, and he didn\u2019t have the opportunity to run [again last year],\u201d Templeton said.<\/p>\n

Gout\u2019s time at the 2025 championships put the athletics world on notice and he said a legal sub-20 time had become his goal ever since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been chasing it ever since I got that illegal sub-20,\u201d Gout said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s been on my mind this whole year, these past couple of months, so glad I got it for sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote down 19.75 and for the past week in my head, I\u2019ve been telling myself I\u2019m running 19.75. And obviously \u2026 19.67 \u2026 gotta love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ominously for his rivals, Gout has no plans to rest on his laurels.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely insane. I guess you could say a big weight off my shoulders knowing that I ran legally and I have the speed in my body to run times like that. So, it definitely feels great. I\u2019m ready for more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve just turned 18 so I definitely think I can go faster, for sure. It\u2019s just about building and getting that consistent sub-20 [times]. There\u2019s no pressure for me. At the end of the day, I\u2019m the only one that goes out there by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next up for Gout is the under-20 junior championship this week, though he will skip the 200m in Queensland and run just the 100m, before he heads overseas for a tantalising match-up with the Olympic champion Noah Lyles over 150m at the Golden Spike event in Ostrava in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having cracked the 20-second barrier with a sizzling run over 200m \u2013 and in the process fulled comparisons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-603686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}