Sprint sensation improves his own Oceania 200m record to 20.02 at the Golden Spike meet in Czechia
Gout Gout, the 17-year-old Australian sprint talent, enjoyed victory on his senior international debut in Europe as he clocked an Oceania 200m record of 20.02 (0.0) at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava on Tuesday (June 24).
The teenager drew clear of Reynier Mena of Cuba in the closing metres to win in style as Mena clocked 20.19. In doing so Gout took two hundredths of a second off his own area record set in December.
Ostrava was one of Usain Bolt’s favourite racing venues and Gout looked strikingly similar to the world record-holder as his tall frame and rangy stride helped propel him to the win.
Elsewhere, Mondo Duplantis cleared a meeting record of 6.13m in the men’s pole vault. The Swedish athlete later went on to try a world record of 6.29m but he could not improve on the 6.28m mark he had set in Stockholm the previous week.
Gout wasn’t the only teenager to impress in Ostrava. Phanuel Koech also set a meeting record as the 18-year-old from Kenya clocked 3:29.05 in the 1500m to lead home a host of fast times. It came four days after Koech ran a world under-20 record of 3:27.72 behind Azeddine Habz at the Paris Diamond League.
Runner-up to Koech in Ostrava was Portugal’s Isaac Nader in 3:29.37, American 800m specialist Josh Hoey clocked 3:29.75 in third and another teenager, Cameron Myers of Australia, ran an Oceania under-20 record of 3:29.80.
Further meeting records fell to Prudence Sekgodiso of South Africa in the women’s 800m with 1:57.16 and Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain with 49.15 in the women’s 400m.
The latter took down a meet record that had stood since 1983 – Tatana Kocembova’s 49.67 – as she beat Lynna Irby-Jackson of the United States (49.82) and Femke Bol of the Netherlands (49.98).
