Gout Gout breaks own 200m record; beats Bolt’s Golden Spike debut time

The 17-year-old Australian Sudanese sprinter clocked 20.02 seconds to interruption the Australian nationalist grounds erstwhile again.

Australian teenage sprinter Gout Gout has crushed the 200-metre tract successful his archetypal elder contention abroad, bettering his ain nationalist grounds by 2 hundredths of a 2nd to decorativeness successful 20.02 seconds astatine the Ostrava Golden Spike.

The 17-year-old precocious schoolhouse pupil ran a textbook contention successful his European debut astatine the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold lawsuit successful the Czech Republic connected Tuesday, crossing the enactment 0.17 seconds up of Cuban Reynier Mena, portion Briton Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake (20.60) was third.

“I consciousness good. New idiosyncratic best, caller nationalist grounds successful my archetypal European race,” the lad from Queensland told reporters.

Gout is being compared with Usain Bolt arsenic helium bushed the Jamaican icon’s clip astatine Ostrava. Bolt finished his archetypal 200m contention astatine the lawsuit successful 20.28 successful 2006, but went connected to triumph 3 Olympic 200-metre golds and acceptable a caller satellite grounds of 19.19 seconds.

“I don’t consciousness immoderate pressure. Because arsenic soon arsenic I measurement retired connected that track, it’s conscionable maine by myself and what I’ve got to bash – my favourite thing, and that’s to run,” Gout said of the expectations.

“So, I conscionable spell retired determination and tally and thing stops maine from doing that … Get immoderate much races successful maine and [the 20-second barrier] volition driblet for sure.”

Gout Gout poses adjacent to a scoreboard arsenic helium celebrates winning the men’s 200m by mounting a caller country grounds [David W Cerny/Reuters]

Gout made headlines successful December erstwhile helium broke Peter Norman’s nationalist grounds that had stood for 56 years astatine 20.04.

He ran a 19.84-second 200 and 9.99 seconds successful the 100m astatine the Australian nationalist championships successful Perth successful April but a beardown tailwind rendered some illegal.

Even without those 2 sub-20 times, he’s inactive successful the apical 7 all-time for Under-20s, a database that includes Bolt.

Gout was calved successful Ipswich, adjacent Brisbane, successful Queensland state. His parents are South Sudanese immigrants who moved to Australia successful 2005.

His performances were beardown enough, however, to gain him a spot connected Australia’s squad for the World Championships successful Tokyo successful September.

Gout Gout competes during the men’s 200-metre lawsuit astatine the 64th Golden Spike athletics gathering successful Ostrava, Czech Republic [Michal Cizek/AFP]