Is Gout Gout faster than Usain Bolt? Australian sprinter sets sights on Jamaican great’s 200m record

Coach believes there’s no limit to 18-year-old’s talent while athlete himself says he’s ‘ready for more’

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

“How long’s a piece of string?” said Gout’s coach and mentor, Di Sheppard, after he clocked 19.67sec at the Australian championships in Sydney on Sunday.

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.

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’s best when the Jamaican sprint great was the same age.

The only man under the age of 20 to have run quicker over 200m is Erriyon Knighton, though the now-banned American’s time in 2022 was unratified.

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

The 18-year-old’s manager, James Templeton, said in the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s race that he was thrilled but not shocked by the time.

“Last 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’t have the opportunity to run [again last year],” Templeton said.

Gout’s 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.

“I’ve been chasing it ever since I got that illegal sub-20,” Gout said. “So, it’s been on my mind this whole year, these past couple of months, so glad I got it for sure.

“I wrote down 19.75 and for the past week in my head, I’ve been telling myself I’m running 19.75. And obviously … 19.67 … gotta love it.”

Ominously for his rivals, Gout has no plans to rest on his laurels.

“It’s 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’m ready for more.

“I’ve just turned 18 so I definitely think I can go faster, for sure. It’s just about building and getting that consistent sub-20 [times]. There’s no pressure for me. At the end of the day, I’m the only one that goes out there by myself.”

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.

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