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

A picture


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,
trendingSee all
A picture

Rolls-Royce secures nearly £600m in UK government cash to develop small reactors

Rolls-Royce has secured up to £599m from Britain’s national wealth fund as it races to develop the UK’s first small modular nuclear reactors.The fund will help support Rolls-Royce’s design of small modular reactors (SMRs) at Wylfa on the island of Anglesey (called Ynys Môn in Welsh).SMR technology aims to produce nuclear power stations in factories to drive down costs and speed up installation.Wylfa generated nuclear power from 1971 until 2015, when it shut down its last reactor. Hitachi, the Japanese conglomerate, tried to build a new nuclear power station there but ultimately abandoned its plans in 2020 after failing to agree government funding

A picture

GSK reports promising early results in ovarian and womb cancer drug trial

GSK has revealed positive results for a treatment for gynaecological cancers as its chief executive, Luke Miels, seeks to speed up drug development at the group.The company said that in an early-stage trial Mocertatug Rezetecan, known as Mo-Rez, shrank or eliminated tumours in 62% of patients with ovarian cancer where chemotherapy had failed, and in 67% of those with endometrial cancer.Based in London, GSK has recently gained plaudits for its work on tackling superbugs, becoming one of just three big pharma companies globally that continue to invest in anti-microbial research.However, commercially GSK has been eclipsed in recent years by its bigger British rival AstraZeneca, which last year outstripped GSK’s near-£33bn turnover by more than £10bn and whose market value is more than twice as high.GSK acquired the Mo-Rez cancer treatment, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), from China’s Hansoh Pharma in late 2023, and has trialled it in 224 patients around the world, including the UK, over the past year

A picture

Booking.com warns customers of hack that exposed their data

The accommodation reservation website Booking.com has suffered a data breach with “unauthorised parties” gaining access to customers’ details.The platform said it “noticed some suspicious activity involving unauthorised third parties being able to access some of our guests’ booking information”.“Upon discovering the activity, we took action to contain the issue,” it said. “We have updated the pin number for these reservations and informed our guests

A picture

‘It feels as if I’ve made a new best friend’: my experiment with AI journalling

What’s it like to have a diary that talks back to you, offering comments and advice on your hopes, fears and lunch plans? I spent two months finding outEver since I was a teenager, I have kept some form of diary. These days I favour a paper one for creative brainstorming, and the Journal app on my iPad where I do a speedily typed brain dump every morning. I have always found it a great way to impose some sort of order on my random thoughts, a form of meditation.But I had never even heard of AI journalling until a Google search led me down a rabbit hole where I encountered people enthusing about two apps, Rosebud and Mindsera. It sounded as if Mindsera’s minimalist design was the best for writers

A picture

Rory McIlroy hails his parents after second Masters triumph

In a sport filled with pushy parents the McIlroys do things differently: Rory McIlroy had to push his parents to attend the scene of his greatest triumph.Rosie and Gerry McIlroy feared their presence might jinx their son’s defence of the Masters, so they planned to steer clear of Augusta National.They partly attributed his victory at the course last year – a dramatic moment in golfing history that secured a career grand slam – to their absence, which avoided distracting him, and planned to do the same last week.Instead, the world’s No 2 persuaded them to travel from Northern Ireland to the US to witness what turned out to be another rollercoaster victory, climaxing in emotional family celebrations.“They weren’t here last year to celebrate with us, and surprisingly I had to convince them to come this year, because they thought the reason I won was because they weren’t here

A picture

WNBA draft 2026 predictions: Will Azzi Fudd or a Spanish prodigy go No 1 overall?

For the past three years, the No 1 pick has been a foregone conclusion: Aliyah Boston in 2023, Caitlin Clark in 2024, Paige Bueckers in 2025. This year has much less certainty. Will the Dallas Wings go for a big or a guard? How did UConn’s exit and UCLA’s triumph affect the stock of their stars? It’s a toss-up, but I’ll go with Awa Fam. She’s only 19, but her athleticism and pick-and-roll game will make her a strong complement to Bueckers in Dallas. EBAwa Fam