Teen sprint star Gout Gout has agreed to run at the Stawell Gift.
In a boon for the Victorian country event, the schoolboy star, who is the hottest property in Australian athletics, wants to race the famous 120-metre sprint on grass on Easter Monday. Gout has agreed, in principle, to run the race, although the final arrangements are still being formalised.
Gout Gout is a rising star of Australian athletics.Credit: Eddie Jim
The signing of Gout is not yet official, but two sources who declined to speak publicly until the matter was made official said it was highly likely he would race at Stawell, which will be a week after the national championships in Perth.
There is no bigger drawcard in Australian athletics at the moment, and he has become one of the most sought-after around the world as an emerging star of the track. His decision to race in Stawell is expected to create more hype for the gift than world champions Asafa Powell (2013) and Kim Collins (2011) did when they competed there.
The famous handicapping professional race is run on the grass of Central Park football and cricket oval in the middle of the small western Victorian town. It bills itself as Australia’s richest foot race, with the winners of the men’s and women’s races both collecting $40,000 in prizemoney.
Given his national 200m record and 10.04s 100m performance, both at the All Schools Championships in December last year, Gout will be unlikely to get a kind starting mark in the handicapped event, which will make it difficult for him to win. Neither Powell nor Collins were able to win in the years they raced there.
Gout Gout winning comfortably at the All Schools event last year. Credit: Nine
Josh Ross in 2005 is the most recent runner to win the gift running from scratch.
Gout has become the most interesting and marketable athlete, indeed sportsperson, in Australia in the past year.
After running second at the world juniors last year in a time quicker than Usain Bolt – the greatest sprinter of all time – ran at the same age, he backed it up with his performances at the All Schools.
He turned 17 just before Christmas, and is studying year 12 this year, while juggling his training commitments, which have included a recent two-week camp in Florida with 100m and 200m world champion Noah Lyles.
Arguably the most famous moment in the Gift’s recent history came not in the gift itself but when in 1995 and 1996 Cathy Freeman won the 400m race, chasing down a pack that started up to 50m ahead of her.
This year’s Stawell Gift carnival will be the 143rd instalment of the race.
It will be staged over the Easter weekend, culminating in the Gift final on Easter Monday, April 21.
Racing on the Monday was postponed by a couple of hours last year when Stawell was hammered by torrential rain and lightning.
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