The kind of pace that propelled teenage sprinting phenom Gout Gout to break decades-old Australian records and earned him an invitation to train with Olympic champion Noah Lyles ended up costing him in his season finale.
The handicapper’s calculations on Monday achieved what few of Gout’s rivals could do all southern summer, making it too difficult for the 17-year-old high school senior to win.
As a back marker at the Stawell Gift — a 120-meter handicap race that has been contested every Easter Weekend since 1878 (barring four years during World War II and in 2020 due to COVID-19) on a turf track in the state of Victoria — Gout missed out on the final when he placed second in his semifinal race.
Only the heat winners advance.
Runners start from handicap marks according to their recent form in the 100 meters. And so John Evans, who started from a mark 8.75 meters ahead of Gout and five lanes across to the right, narrowly won their semifinal race. Evans then went on to win the final.
The meet was broadcast live across Australia on commercial television in high expectation of a show down between Gout and 21-year-old Lachlan Kennedy, a silver medalist in the 60m at the World Indoor Championships in China last month. The national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, featured the meet in a live blog on its website.
Gout had run wind-assisted sub-10-second times in the 100m, and a sub-20 200m, over the last month to win national titles. Those times don’t go into the official records — because the tailwinds were above the allowable threshold — but his titles and swift progress through the senior ranks have captivated Australians and renewed interest in the domestic track and field scene.
While the setback may have knocked the confidence of other callow runners, Gout’s coach Di Sheppard said it had only made him angry.
“These are the steps we take to the top, you know? And these are the steps I have to take to potentially become world champion, Olympic champion,” Gout said.
Last December, at age 16, Gout ran 20.04 seconds to win the 200m at the national high school championships, breaking a 56-year-old national record over that distance set by 1968 Olympic silver medalist, the late Peter Norman.
“What is also now a matter that’s not open for debate is that Gout is the real thing. We are witnesses to greatness emerging in front of us by the race,” said a testimonial published in The Age, a Melbourne newspaper.
Gout can no longer go out in public without being swamped by fans, and will return to his high school in Ipswich, a suburb of Brisbane, to another round of cheers from classmates. “The cork’s out of the genie bottle now,” Sheppard said.
The fledgling rivalry between young sprinters Gout and Kennedy already has Australians excited about the 2032 Summer Games, which were awarded in 2021 to Brisbane.
It will be a hometown Olympics for Brisbane native Gout. He’ll be 24 in 2032, and he’s already being compared with legendary sprinter Usain Bolt, based on their comparative times as teenagers.
Even Lyles said in a podcast conversation with Gout that it could be the “perfect storm” for the young Australian runner.
“That’s the end goal for sure,” Gout said. “Yeah, 2032, that’s what I’m (aiming) at for sure.”
For now, he’ll take a quick break, concentrate on his high school studies and then start preparing for the world championships in Tokyo in September.
On Monday, he just soaked up the atmosphere for a while.
“It’s definitely great. This is a great meet. The crowd, the people, the track, everything,” he said.
“It feels pretty incredible. People come from all around Australia to watch me run.”
