Teenage sprint sensation Gout Gout continued his remarkable summer by winning the Queensland under-20 100m title in Brisbane on Saturday, clocking 10.38 seconds in the final. The 17-year-old, who broke the Australian 200m record in December, is in the midst of a heavy training block ahead of the Maurie Plant meet in Melbourne on 29 March.
Gout, who recently trained with Olympic champion Noah Lyles in Florida, said the experience taught him to focus on his mental state. “I just learned to be myself and follow my processes. You can do all the work in the world but if you’re in good mental shape you’ll be right,” he said.
His time of 10.38s ranks among his top 10 career performances, with his legal best of 10.17s placing him in contention for the world championships in Japan in September. Only Patrick Johnson (9.93s in 2003) has run under 10 seconds for 100m among Australians.
Gout faces stiff competition from fellow Queenslanders, including Lachlan Kennedy (10.03s this month), Rohan Browning (10.12s in Brisbane), and Joshua Azzopardi. The quintet could meet at the Stawell Gift on Easter Monday.
Gout’s immediate focus is his first 200m race of the season at the Queensland Championships on Sunday. In December, he broke Peter Norman’s 56-year-old Australian 200m record with a time of 20.04 seconds.
