The Gout Gout effect is tipped to make this weekend’s Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne the biggest domestic athletics event since the post-2000 halcyon era inspired by Cathy Freeman, according to Australian Athletics boss Simon Hollingsworth.
The schoolboy star Gout, who has broken the national men’s 200m record, will run at Lakeside Stadium on Saturday night in his biggest race since last year’s breakthrough performance at the world junior championships, where he won silver.
Teenage star Gout is helping drive interest in athletics. Credit: Australian Athletics
The teenage rising star of world athletics, Gout has ensured a boom in ticket sales meaning Saturday night’s meeting is likely to fill the 9000-person capacity at the Albert Park stadium.
Hollingworth said ticket sales were up 60 per cent on the same time last year, and while there was a wave of interest after the successful Paris Olympics, there was also an immediate, significant bump in sales after Gout confirmed he would run the 200m in Melbourne.
“There is a lot of interest after Paris, but also a significant impact from Gout. We are well and truly on the way to seeing a very full stadium. I think it will be [one of] the biggest crowds we have seen since the early 2000s after the Sydney Olympics and Cathy Freeman. And in terms of performance the quality of the meet is the best we have seen for a long time,” Hollingsworth said.
Freeman is uniquely placed to understand what Gout is going through, the impact he is having and the burden he is shouldering. She has been as taken as anyone with the Gout story.
Cathy Freeman after winning gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.Credit: Getty
“[Gout] is just something else,” she told veteran athletics commentator Bruce McAvaney in an interview for Seven’s Spotlight.
“Watching him race, it’s like he’s running downhill, like he’s been shot out of a cannon or something. He’s quite extraordinary.
“He’s probably smarter than I was at that age. He’s definitely quicker. But he’s certainly got the world at his feet.”
Freeman was 16 when she won a Commonwealth Games gold medal. In 1993, she made the semi-finals in the 200m at the world championships, seven years out from the Sydney Olympics.
“I hope to be there watching him in seven years time,” she said of Gout and the 2032 Brisbane Games. “I just wish him all the best.”
Gout Gout’s record-breaking run.
While Australian Athletics is in a golden period for performance – Australia celebrated its best medal haul at an Olympics in Paris with one gold, two silver, and four bronze) – the impact that Gout has had on capturing the public imagination has been profound.
“He has supercharged interest in the sport,” Hollingsworth said.
“It is undeniable. It is the double effect of the fact he is involved in the 100 and 200 metre sprints which have a special place in people’s hearts so for an Australian to show all the signs of being a major contender with the world’s best captures people’s imagination.
“And then there is his unique story being a teenager of African-born parents who claimed a long-standing really significant sprint record. And it’s not just that he is winning, it is the way he is winning and racing, his age.”
Gout Gout in Brisbane.Credit: Eddie Jim
The moment Gout, then 16, ran a wind-assisted 10.04s for the 100m at the All School Championships in Queensland in December then the next day broke Peter Norman’s 56-year-old record for the 200m, he was vaulted to a new level in Australian sport.
The fact that he ran faster than the sport’s greatest ever athlete, Usain Bolt, at the same age prompted comparisons with Bolt and raised expectations. It also drew warm recognition from Bolt, who saw the likeness in running style.
Comparing Usain Bolt’s 200m world record run with the speed of 16-year-old Gout Gout.Credit: World Athletics
“In the moment it feels great because everyone wants to be compared to Usain Bolt, the fastest athlete alive,” Gout said in the Spotlight interview.
“At times it does get a bit overwhelming, but now that I’ve grown up, I’m a bit mature and my circle really helps me stay level and I’m just trying to make a name for myself.
“Although I do run like Usain Bolt and I do maybe look like him, I’m just trying to be myself and trying to be the next Gout.”
