Gout Gout shatters world under-20 record in mind-blowing run

Gout Gout shattered his Australian 200m record and the world under-20 record in a bonkers run at the national athletics championships on Sunday afternoon.

In wild scenes at Sydney Olympic Park, the athlete who finished second to Gout, Aidan Murphy, also broke the Australian record.

Gout, who is still only 18, won the race in 19.67 seconds and Murphy clocked 19.88, both of them obliterating the 20.02 national record set by Gout last year.

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Crucially, the wind reading was a legal +1.7 metres per second on Sunday.

The 200m world record is Usain Bolt's 19.19, set at the 2009 world championships in Berlin.

By stopping the clock at 19.67, Gout took .02 of a second off American Erriyon Knighton's world under-20 record set in 2022.

The fastest Bolt ran as an under-20 athlete was 19.93 in 2004.

"It's been in my mind this whole year [cracking 20 seconds legally], these past couple of months, so glad I got it, for sure," Gout told reporters.

"I wrote down 19.75, and for the past week in my head I would tell myself I'm running 19.75, and obviously 19.67, so you've got to love it."

Gout ran 19.84 to win the national title in Perth last year but the Queenslander had an illegal wind at his back.

He claimed the Australian 200m record at the national school titles in December 2024 when he clocked 20.04 to take down Peter Norman's 20.06 set at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

He then ran 20.02 at the Czech Republic's Ostrava Golden Spike meet last year to lower the mark.

"There's a big weight off my shoulders knowing I ran it [a sub-20 time] legally, and I have the speed and my body to run times like that. So, it definitely feels great, and ready for more," he said.

Gout won't run at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games this year, having chosen to prioritise the world under-20 championships which begin straight after in Eugene, Oregon.

His sights are firmly set on winning gold in the 200m in his final world under-20 championship appearance.

"[Running at the senior] world champs [in Tokyo last year], that was the type of stuff for me and this year [is about] me being out of high school competing against the big men, just going out there and doing my thing up against them."

Murphy, 22, blew his personal best, 20.41, to pieces. He is the son of Tania Van Heer, the bronze medallist in the women's 100m at the 1998 Commonwealth Games.

Earlier on Sunday, another highly anticipated showdown between Gout and fellow Queensland sprint sensation Lachlan Kennedy fell through when the latter pulled out, having won the 100m title in 9.96 seconds on Saturday night.

Knighton clocked 19.49 as an under-20 athlete in 2022 but World Athletics did not ratify it as a record because anti-doping testing requirements were not met.

Knighton then copped a four-year ban in September last year for testing positive to a banned drug.

Gout is locked in for a series of races across Europe and the US this year, one of which is a 200m at the prestigious Prefontaine Classic in Eugene in early July.

Super Bol

Earlier in the afternoon, Peter Bol grabbed his fifth national 800m title with a time of 1:45.60.

Rising star Daniel Williams, 18, took the lead on the back straight of the final lap but Bol retook the lead around the bend and held off a spirited Luke Boyes, the 2024 national champion.

Boyes took second in 1:45.73 and Bob Abdelrahim (1:45.96) finished third, with Williams fading to finish fourth.

Caldwell edges Hollingsworth

Abbey Caldwell has a superb kick and it delivered her the women's 800m title on Sunday.

Caldwell flew past Claudia Hollingsworth on the home straight to win in 1:58.57, ahead of Hollingsworth (1:58.91) and the third-placed Sarah Billings (1:59.23).

In other results, Michelle Jenneke won the women's 100m hurdles final in 12.74 seconds, Nicola Olyslagers claimed the women's high jump title with a 1.99m jump, and Jess Hull won the women's 5000m final in 15:13.21.