Gout Gout set an Australian 200m record of 20.02 seconds at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava on Tuesday. The 17-year-old claimed the Oceania area record and a clear victory in his first senior race outside Australia.
A decisive surge past a Diamond League rival
Racing with a neutral wind of 0.0, Gout entered the straight slightly behind Cuba’s Reynier Mena. Mena had won the previous two Diamond League 200m contests.
The Australian powered through the closing metres to break the race open, winning by 0.17 seconds from Mena’s 20.19. Britain’s Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake finished third in 20.60.
A record lowered twice in seven months
The time shaved two hundredths off the national mark Gout set in Brisbane last December. That 20.04 had ended Peter Norman’s 56-year hold on the Australian record, which dated to the 1968 Olympics.
Tuesday’s run stands as the second-fastest under-18 200m in history. The Golden Spike venue also supplied a direct line to Usain Bolt, whose first Ostrava 200m in 2006 was a 20.28.
"I feel good. New personal best, new national record in my first European race," Gout told reporters afterwards. He had already broken the 20-second barrier with a wind-assisted 19.84 in Perth earlier that year.
Still a high-school student from Ipswich, Queensland, the teenager had never contested a senior international event before this evening. His Ostrava win was a first, not a peak.
