SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian teenager Gout Gout underlined his startling potential and earned more comparisons with Usain Bolt by running the 200 metres in a wind-assisted 19.98 seconds at the Queensland state championships on Sunday.
The breeze of 3.6 metres per second means his dip under the 20-second barrier will not be entered into the record books but his 20.05 in the heats was the fastest in the world this year, albeit at a time when most sprinters are not competing outdoors.
"I had an unsteady start, and to be honest, after that I didn't really feel like running," the 17-year-old said at Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre (QSAC) in Brisbane.
"But it felt pretty good. I came off the bend and I just kept sending it. I felt the wind behind me, so I was like, let me just use it. And then I saw the clock, and when it got rounded down (to 19.98), I just couldn't be happier."
The son of migrants from war-torn South Sudan, Gout Gout's running style and fast times have already earned comparisons with Jamaican sprinting great Bolt.
Gout's legal time in the heats was just a hundredth of a second out from the 20.04 he ran at QSAC in December to break the Australian record Peter Norman set at the 1968 Olympics.
He has already stated his ambition to become the first Australian to break the 20-second barrier in the 200m and the second to crack the 10-second barrier in the 100m, where his best legal time is 10.17.
Gout has just started his final year of high school in the Queensland town of Ipswich just down the road from Brisbane, where the Olympics will be held in 2032 when he is 24.
"It feels great because I've been at that stage, watching Usain Bolt on the news and just getting goosebumps," he added on Sunday.
"Giving people goosebumps, it definitely feels great and I wish I can continue giving people more goosebumps that’s for sure."
Gout's next chance to do that will be in Melbourne at the Maurie Plant Meet on March 29.
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Edwina Gibbs)
