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Aussie sports broadcasting legend Bruce McAvaney has compared Gout Gout to Cathy Freeman in one of the clearest signs yet the teenage athletics sensation has taken Australia — and the world — by storm. Watch selected NRL, AFL, SSN games plus every F1 qualifying session and race live in 4K on Kayo. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1.
Limited time offer. The 16-year-old Gout has had the wildest year of his young life as he’s been compared to 100m and 200m world record holder Usain Bolt as records have tumbled in his wake. Gout won a silver medal in the 200m at the under-20 world championships in Peru in August — remember, he’s just 16 — in a time of 20.
60, 0.01 seconds faster than Bolt did back in 2002 when he ran to win the world junior title just shy of his 16th birthday. But it’s the tip of the iceberg when it’s come to records falling, currently the fourth fastest Aussie male over 200m in history.
McAvaney told Code Sports that it was clear that Gout had a “rare gift” that could be nurtured into something Australia hasn’t seen before. “Has there been anyone more exciting?” McAvaney says. “Freeman was but he’s at a more mature stage than Cathy was at 16 in terms of what he is doing.
“We have never had anyone quite like him and the potential is unique within this country I think.” Along with his under-20s silver medal, Gout has been making waves online, going viral after a video surfaced of his 100m race at the Queensland Athletics Championships in March, breaking his own under-16s national record in a time of 10.29 seconds.
But it was earlier this month that Gout made everyone realise he could well be the real deal after running a 20.29 in the heats of the 200m at the All Schools Queensland track and field championships. Not only did he annihilate his PB of 20.
60 from the world junior champs, his time is currently the 57th fastest in the world at all age groups in 2024, less than a second behind Botswana’s Letsile Tobogo’s 19.46 from the Olympics — and just over a second outside Usain Bolt’s world record of 19.19, which he’s held since 2009.
To put the performance in perspective, Gout not only smashed the Queensland Open 200m record, the Australian under-18 and under-20 records as well as the Oceania under-18 and under-20s records, but also registered the equal seventh fastest time in history by an Australian. While Gout broke his own under-18 records, he lowered Aidan Murphy’s under-20s record of 20.42 set in 2022.
For the record, Peter Norman’s 1968 run in the final of the Mexico City Olympics is the fastest ever time by an Australian at 20.06. Norman (20.
06, 20.22, 20.23 — all at the 1968 Olympics), Dean Capobianco (20.
18, 20.21 and 20.29 in 1993) and John Dinan (20.
19 in 1986) are the only faster times by Aussies in history. All three men were in the 20s when they achieved their times. To thing the Brisbane-born speedster is still developing, McAvaney believes Gout could be anything, even though there will be some difficult times along the way.
“There is no question he (Gout) has caught the world’s attention,” McAvaney said. “The world is at his feet, we haven’t had anyone like him in Australia. “But the challenge for him and his handlers is the fact there will be a plateau, a dip at some stage.
Bolt went through this, they all go through this. “Sprinting is a very, very fragile game and there are some years where things just don’t quite go right. The upward trajectory that we are all smiling and can’t get enough of is so uplifting but there will be a time where he, and those around him, have got to be patient and understand that there will be a time where it will plateau.
“That is the exciting challenge he faces and for him it is an incredible time because his eyes are wide open. It’s all new and there is a bit of mystery about him.” McAvaney will have a front-row seat to Gout’s development after the Seven Network signed a two-year extension to remain the broadcast home of Australian athletics.
It means five of Australia’s most prestigious meets including Oceania’s one and only World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meet, the Maurie Plant Meet as well as the 2025 Australian Athletics Championships will be broadcast exclusively on 7plus. McAvaney said he believed athletics was “heading for a golden age” in Australia. It’s hard to argue after Nina Kennedy brought home Olympic pole vault gold from Paris, while Jess Hull (1500m) and Nicola Olyslagers (high jump) claimed silver, and Eleanor Patterson (high jump), Jemima Montag (20km walk), Montag and Rhydian Cowley (marathon walk relay) and Matt Denny (discus) nabbed bronze.
It was Australia’s best medal haul since Melbourne 1956..
