Australian sprint talent Gout Gout clocked sub-20 seconds in the 200m

Australian sprint talent Gout Gout has set the world’s fastest men’s 200m time of the year. The 17-year-old athlete ran 20.05 sec in the heats in Queensland before dropping to 19.98 sec (3.6 m/s) in the final, but that time was achieved in a headwind of over 2 m/s and his achievement will not be recorded in the official records.

Gout Gout ran 20.04 sec last year, breaking Peter Norman’s Australian men’s record of 20.06 sec, set at the 1968 Olympics.

“I felt free. When I saw the scoreboard I was really happy and surprised on the one hand, but at the same time I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Now I’ve done it, I just have to be more consistent”, said Gout Gout after the race in Australia.

He was born in Australia and his parents are migrants from South Sudan.

Last year, Gout Gout began to be compared to the legend Usain Bolt, with even the president of the World Athletics Federation, Sebastian Coe, admitting that the Australian sprinter possesses a rare talent.

The qualifying standard for the World Championships in Tokyo in the 200m is 20.16 sec, and Gout Gout has already run under that result twice.