Back in March 2026, when Gout Gout, often called the “new Usain Bolt,” lost the race to his rival by just five hundredths of a second at the Maurie Plant Meet, the noise started to grow. “Gout is overrated,” some said. But after that loss, Gout promised, “Next time I’ll be better for sure.” Just a few weeks later, he returned to the track and did exactly that! But this time, the comparisons to Bolt didn’t feel forced anymore as he went past Bolt’s mark.

On April 12 at the Australian Athletics Championships in Sydney, the 18-year-old Gout Gout delivered a performance that changed how people see him. He clocked 19.67s in the 200m, breaking his own national record of 20.02s and also setting a new world U20 record. More than that, it made him the first Australian man to run under 20s in legal conditions (+1.7). Despite this lengthy list, there is one detail people cannot stop talking about.

This time is faster than anything Usain Bolt had run as a 17-year-old teenager – 19.93 from the 2004 CARIFTA Games. 22 years later, Gout has surpassed Bolt’s speed at the same age. Seeing the Gout breaking this mark, Bruce McAvaney, the Australian sports broadcaster, said:

“He’s gone past Usain Bolt by a big, big stretch.” He added, “The world will be shaking. It is seismic.”

Gout agreed the achievement was a “big weight off my shoulders.”

“I’ve been chasing it ever since I got that illegal sub-20,” he said. “It’s been on my mind this whole year these past few months and now I have got it for sure.” But he knows there is more to come.

“I’m still only 18, I’ve just turned 18, I know I can go faster for sure. This is what it’s about building and getting that consistent sub 20,” he said.

Gout had come agonizingly close to this mark before. He ran 19.84 at the 2025 Australian Championships and 19.98 at the Queensland Championships. Both times, the wind was too strong, so neither run counted. This time, there was no asterisk.

As per Gout’s coach, they made a slight change to his running recently, “We tweaked a couple of little things, worked his hands a bit better, just tried to get his turnover a bit better — and it worked.”

The race unfolded cleanly from the start. Gout powered off the bend and entered the straight in front, with Aidan Murphy close behind, finishing in 19.88. That time put Murphy ahead of Peter Norman’s historic 1968 mark. Calab Law came through for third in 20.21.

But there was one missing piece in this race. His rival, Kennedy, fresh off winning the 100m title with back-to-back 9.96 runs, chose to step away from the 200m to manage his workload. So, the expected rematch never happened, but drama was not needed in this race. After crossing the line, Gout enjoyed the moment. He celebrated, smiled for the cameras and signed autographs.

“It’s absolutely insane,” he said. “You could say it’s a big weight off my shoulders knowing that I ran it legally and I have the speed in my body to run times like that.” That relief, though, came after months of questions.

Early doubts around Gout’s rising hype

When Gout first broke through in December 2024, he ran 20.04 seconds at the Australian All Schools Championships. That run broke a 56-year-old national record, and at just 16, he was already being spoken about as one of the fastest teenagers in history. Even Usain Bolt acknowledged the talent, saying he looked like “young me.”

Then, a few months later, in mid-2025, Gout went even faster, clocking 20.02 seconds. And this made him the fastest 16-year-old ever over 200m and pushed the Bolt comparisons into global conversations. But as expectations grew…the results became more mixed!

At the 2025 Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne, he faced Lachlan Kennedy in a major senior clash and lost narrowly by running 20.30 to Kennedy’s 20.26. Later in 2025, at the World Championships in Tokyo, Gout did not reach the final. He ran 20.23 in the heats and 20.36 in the semi-finals, ending his run earlier than expected. For an athlete already being compared to Bolt, it was seen as a step back in momentum!

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR