Australia’s sprint sensation Gout Gout has broken 10 seconds for the 100 metres in a low-key schools event in Queensland.
It was only a Friday night schoolboy meet, and it was hand-timed therefore not official, but the Australian teen phenomenon stopped the clock at 9.94 seconds.
Gout Gout ran the 100 metres in 9.94 seconds at a school meet in Brisbane.Credit: Luke Hemer
“It’s a low-key event the GPS but it’s good to get a run in, a nice little warm up and shows the form he is in for Tokyo in three weeks,” Gout’s manager James Templeton said.
“It was hand timed but it was a race effort and that’s important in the weeks leading up to Tokyo.”
Gout Gout in an outside lane destroys his opponents in this 100m event.
Regardless of the legalities of hand timing – it was at least believed to have been a legal wind – and the very low-key amateur status of the event, the performance shows what form the 17-year-old is in, despite year 12 studies, ahead of the World Championships in Tokyo starting in three weeks.
Gout will not run the sprint double in Tokyo, concentrating on the 200 metres, but even with all the caveats about Friday night’s race it proves two critical things about Gout.
Firstly, the pace is there and it looks like he is getting quicker. Secondly, the 100 metres is his weaker event currently as he is notoriously slow (relatively) out of the blocks so if he is getting these sorts of times for the 100m then it augurs very well for what he can do in the 200m.
And that is only on thinking of what he might do in Tokyo. If it points to what he can do when he is an adult, out of school and in full-time training, the potential is enormous.
Fellow Australian Lachie Kennedy became just the second Australian after Patrick Johnson to officially break 10 seconds when he clocked 9.98 seconds at a meet in Africa in late May this year.
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