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Gout Gout has blitzed the field but fallen short of breaking the 10-second barrier while winning the 100m at the Australian athletics junior championships in Brisbane on Saturday.
The 18-year-old took time to get his motor going before settling into his stride and chasing down the early leaders to cross the line first in a time of 10.21sec with a legal tailwind of +0.5m/s.
Gout left plenty in reserve as he eased up and waved to the crowd before finishing ahead of Zavier Peacock who clocked 10.35sec. Queenslander Uwezo Lubenda burst out of the blocks to set the pace before coming in third in 10.37sec.
“I didn’t have the best start, but I came out for the W [win], and I wanted to put on a show for the rest of the people watching,” Gout said after claiming his second consecutive under-20 100m nationals crown.
“The more of a show there is, the more people that are going to come and watch. The more people there are, the more pressure. The more pressure, the faster you run.
“At the end of the day, I’m going out there to have a bit of fun and run as fast as I can.”
The sprint phenom will soon head overseas for his first senior athletics campaign, which will include a showdown with 200m Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo in a Diamond League meet in Oslo in June.
But Gout will first head to America to train alongside sponsor stablemate and reigning 100m Olympic champion Noah Lyles, who also has four 200m world championship titles to his name.
The pair will spend time training together before a duel over 150m at the Ostrava Golden Spike meet in Czechia on 16 June.
“It definitely means a lot, knowing I can go up against the Olympic champion, world champion, multi-time world champion,” Gout said.
“I will definitely up my game, for sure, versing the best guy in the world right now.”
A week after rival Lachlan Kennedy made history by becoming the first Australian to break the 10-second barrier for the 100m on home soil – when twice running 9.96sec at the national championships – Gout chose not to target the same milestone when easing up 30 metres from the line in the under-20 final.
Gout qualified fastest through the heats after clocking a 10.19sec on Friday but did not aim to better the mark in two runs on Saturday. He cruised through the semis to also qualify fastest for the final in 10.45sec while running into a strong headwind of -2.2m/s.
The Queenslander has a personal best of 10.00sec over 100m set in a low-key season opener in February, and previously ran a 9.99sec with an excessive tailwind at the national championships in Perth last year.
The teenage sensation and Kennedy are both eyeing off the national record of 9.93sec which Patrick Johnson has held since 2003.
Gout arrived at the junior championships in red-hot form after taking out the 200m at last week’s nationals with a legal time of 19.67sec – the fastest under-20 time on record after eclipsing Usain Bolt’s 19.93sec set in 2004.
The Queenslander will skip the Commonwealth Games this year to focus on the 200m at the World Junior Championships in Oregon in August.
Gout and his team will decide in the coming months whether to add the 100m to his junior championships program.
